Symptom
With SAP HANA, the proper backup policy is to regularly back up the entire instance to an external medium.
SQL commands (and the backup service provided by SAP Business One) can help you to export individual SAP Business One company database schemas.
The schema-level export does not ensure data consistency.
Schema export can work as a complement to the instance backup operation, but cannot replace instance backup as the sole or major backup policy.
Environment
SAP HANA for SAP Business One
Resolution
If any other transactions happen while a schema export is already in progress:
- The new transactions may or may not reflect themselves in the export.
- Parts of the new transactions are included in the export while the others are not.
Please be aware of this risk if schema export is a complementing backup policy of your company.
If you perform an instance backup:
- A snapshot of the instance is taken.
- Any new transactions are NOT included in the instance backup.
You can use the instance backup to recover the instance to a point in time.
SAP recommends to back up your SAP HANA instance regularly to safeguard your data. If schema export is part of your backup policy, perform the export when no transactions are running on the database.
Use the following SQL query in the SAP HANA Studio to check for open connections to a specific schema:
select distinct client_host, client_ip, client_pid from m_connections where connection_id > 0 and current_schema_name = ?;
To avoid data inconsistency in export, close all open connections beforehand.
Schema Import
When importing a schema, ensure that the operation is not interrupted (for example don't close the SAP HANA studio when the process is still running). Otherwise, data in some tables could be inaccessible in the imported schema or the original schema.
