IBDataGuard and FBDataGuard

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IBDataGuard and FBDataGuard (further – DataGuard) are intended for use in production environment, especially in the one of the following cases :

• Databases with business-critical data inside

• Large databases (>30Gb)

• 24x7 databases

• Databases without administration support

• Databases at remote locations

Technical description

DataGuard contains 3 main parts: Agent, Extractor and Control Center. Agent is Windows service or Linux-daemon application (currently only Windows-version is available), which is running at the same server with database. Agent protects databases from corruptions, improves indices performance, gathers monitoring data and notify administrator about possible or actual problems.

Extractor is application to extract data from corrupted databases. If it was unable to prevent a corruption (due to hardware failure), Extractor will be able to extract all remaining data to the new databases. Extractor uses data gathered by Agent to save data from corrupted databases.

Control Center is application to manage databases, protected by Agents, and view databases health, statistics and performance.

Agent

Agent itself contains 2 parts: agent application DataGuardSVC.exe (Windows) and Configuration Assistant (DGCAssistant.exe). Configuration Assistant helps to setup Agent, its protection and monitoring parameters, and also setting for sending warnings via SMTP.

Main tasks of Agent:

• Scan low-level metadata of database and saves changes (if any) to the repository. This metadata will be used if corruption will happen.

• Check indices and recompute indices selectivity

• Log CPU and RAM load

• Log transaction activities (and tracking down possible problems)

• Log users activity (for Interbase 7.1 and higher and Firebird 2.1 and higher)

• Storing database statistics periodically (with information about indices, tables fragmentation, records versions, etc)

• Checking database size and free space (multi-file databases supported)

• Checking rdb$formats counters

• Watching firebird.log for changes and alerting if critical errors occurred

• Performing scheduled general backups (with ability to run scheduled restore to check backup)

• Performs incremental backup operations (for Firebird 2.0 and higher), including copying of backup files

• Sending warnings and alerts to administrator email and/or writing it to the Windows log (Windows only)

Extractor

Extractor is Windows-only utility to extract data from corrupted database, and also for undeleting of occasionally deleted information. Extracor is based on low-level «decryption» technology – it reads database page by page and extract data from it using low-level metadata saved in repository. It allows to reach very high level of safety and warranty of data – even if protected database will be heavily corrupted and it will be not possible to repair it with gfix, gbak and even IBFirstAID/FBFirstAID, DataGuard Extractor can extract all physically remained data from database file, including BLOBs and system data (generators values, etc), and pump to the new database.

Also Extractor can undelete tables, occasionally deleted by DROP database command.

Main features of Extractor are:

• Ability to extract data from the heavily corrupted databases

• Ability to partially extract data

• Ability to extract all correct and incorrect BLOBs from corrupted database as separate files

• Ability to use low-level metadata from the old copy of corrupted database to extract data (in case of emergency for non-protected database)

• Export to the new database with optional switching of active triggers and switching them on after extract is complete

Control Center

Control Center is application to manage protected databases, analyze statistics, users activity and transaction behaviour in protected databases. Control Center allows to view warnings and analyze logs gathered by different agents using suitable graphic interface. With Contol Center an administrator can easily review status of many database simultaneously and decide on actions to prevent downtime or other problems.

Control Center communicates with Agents in secure way using email exchange or SSL connections.

Main features of Contol Center:

• Ability to quickly recognize actual and potential problems with databases protected by DataGuard Agents, including corruptions and performance bottlenecks

• Ability to analyze database statistics snapshots and receive appropriate recommendations

• Ability to see transactions behaviour and analyze it dynamically

• and more

Editions

IBDataGuard and FBDataGuard are produced in 3 editions: Basic, Professional and Enterprise.

Basic

Basic Edition is intended for a database protection and a basic monitoring of transaction behaviour. It is sufficient for protecting database against corruption (and recovery if corruption happened) and watching the activity of database's transactions.

DataGuard Basic is suitable for mid-size database with not very high load, and especially with distributed applications with many installations and without dedicated (professional) administrator support.

Professional

Professional edition includes all features of Basic Edition and advanced monitoring and database care features: indices care, gathering database statistics information, logging CPU and RAM load. DataGuard Professional includes graphical tools to analyze gathered information and generate recommendations how to recognize and solve an actual and possible performance problem.

Also DataGuard Professional includes database maintenance abilities: general backup and incremental backup (for appropriate server versions) scheduling.

DataGuard Professional is intended for use with large databases (>40Gb), especially which work in 24x7 mode.

Enterprise

Enterprise edition is intended for companies with multiple Firebird or Interbase databases. Among Professional features, DataGuard Enterprise edition includes Control Center to quickly review status of many installed databases, recognize upcoming or actual problems and get recommendations how to resolve them.

Enterprise Edition is also suitable for using as managing center for many remote installations – i.e., as technical support workbench for distributed applications in different locations, working with them via SSL or via emails.

Licensing

DataGuard is licensed on per server basis. To protect and monitor databases at every server with InterBase or Firebird database installed need to have appropriate license for each server.

Also DataGuard versions for InterBase (IBDataGuard) and Firebird (FBDataGuard) are different, and you need to choose carefully to obtain right version. FBDataGuard will not work with InterBase databases, and IBDataGuard will not work with Firebird databases, appropriately.

Pricing is:

Each license includes free updates between major versions (i.e., all 1.x version are free for buyers of 1.0 ) and discounted upgrades to all future releases.

Partnership program

If you are a vendor of database application you can include our products to be part of your software. For this you need to be our partner. Being our partner vendors will be able 1) to get full range of IBSurgeon tools, 2) resell our tools to their end users and earn on commission, 3) receive great discounts for including our tools into own applications. For details please visit our «Partners information» page.