Environment
Reload 5
Situation
When using a Paired Reload Collector, how does the GroupWise Backup Timestamp (SmartPurge) get advanced?
Resolution
NOTE: To understand more about the details of the backup process see: How Does the Reload Collector Work?
1. The Paired Reload Collector performs it's portion of the backup job in the following manner:
a. Use DBCOPY to backup the content of the post office OFUSER and OFMSG directories to the local [Reload profile path]/backups/weeknow/[backup name]
b. Transmits with rsync, the backed up OFUSER and OFMSG data to the remote Paired Reload Server to the staging area called [Reload profile path]/gre_data/sync
c. Transmits the contents OFUSER and OFMSG data to the remote Paired Reload Server to the staging area called [Reload profile path]/gre_data/sync
d. Transmits the contents OFFILES directory data to the remote Paired Reload Server to the location [Reload profile path]/blobs/offiles
2. The Reload Collector then stops processing, and considers itself done with the backup process.
a. The Reload Collector keeps a memory file that indicates what the times was when the backup began, minus 2 minutes.
b. The Reload Collector does not advance the timestamp to the time that the backup began. The reason for this is because although the Reload Collector has transmitted all the data for the backup to the Reload Server, the Reload Server needs to capture the data from the staging area on the Reload server, into an actual backup set on the Reload server.
3. The Reload Server captures the content from the staging area on the Reload Server
b. The Reload Server creates a directory that correlates with the timestamp from the backup job that sent the data the staging area. The existence of this directory is a signal to the Reload Collector, the next time that it runs, that the backup was captured from the staring area.
4. When the Reload Collector runs next, it will probe for the directory that it has in it's memory file, and advance the time to the time from the prior backup.
CONCLUSION
Customers will notice that when they implement a Reload Collector, the timestamp will only advance to the time from the day before, or at least the last time that a Reload backup job ran for which SmartPurge was enabled.