My standard rant on this (based on past experience):

"Data to be archived for more than one year will be flat-filed in 8-bit
ASCII and written to tape UNBLOCKED with a record length that is divisible
by 4. The source code to the unload and reload programs will be archived at
the same time, as well as the SOURCE code for the application."

Just TRY to peel off a Burroughs medium-system Forte/II database from a
Burroughs dump tape to a Honeywell DPS-8 sometime -- and, a bit later, a
Honeywell dump tape of a DM-IV database to an IBM MVS platform . . .

We're currently using the SAP Archivelink process to extract data from
SAP/Oracle, and IBM's Commonstore to pass it to TSM. I'll let you know in
about eight years (past experience again) if this was a good idea. I've 25
years at the same company, and we've done 4 major platform changes in that
time period -- Burroughs MCPV to Honeywell GCOS-3 to IBM MVS (SP, XA, ESA)
to IBM AIX, and Forte/II to DM-IV to IMS/CICS to SAP/Oracle

Just my twopenny-worth . . .

Tom Kauffman
NIBCO, Inc


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Taylor [mailto:jtaylor AT ENLOGIX DOT COM]
> Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2001 9:48 AM
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject: Long Term Archive for Databases
>
>
> I keep getting this pressure from clients to keep copies of
> their 500GB
> oracle database for 7 years.  They don't seem to know why
> they want it kept
> for seven years.  Like most others they don't think of what
> their restore
> requirements are.
>
> Has anyone had to restore/retrieve a large database that was,
> say more than
> 2 years old.  If so was it successful and was it as simple as
> restoring just
> the DB.
>
> ThanX
>
> > Jim Taylor
> > Senior Associate, Technical Services
> > Enlogix
> > *  E-mail: jtaylor AT enlogix DOT com
> > *  Office: (416) 496-5264 ext. 286
> > * Cell:  (416)458-6802
> > *   Fax: (416) 496-5245
> >
> >
>