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Codebeamer Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)

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Daily back up of your codeBeamer installation should consist of two parts:

Best practices to backup codeBeamer database

If you are using MySQL database with codeBeamer then you can dump the complete codeBeamer database (including stored procedures) with the command:

mysqldump --routines --protocol=tcp -u cbroot -pcbpassword --single-transaction --max_allowed_packet=1024M --default-character-set=utf8 codebeamer > cb.dump

If other databases - like Oracle - is being used please back up your database using the database specific commands.

In any case it is important to ensure that:

  • The database is backed up using a consistent snapshot (the --single-transaction does this in the script above for MySQL).
  • The BLOB data is exported too (the --max_allowed_packet setting ensures this: if your BLOBs are bigger than this then please adjust the packet size accordingly)
  • The data is exported in UTF-8 data format and your import procedure and the database should be configured properly (--default-character-set=utf8 does this in our MySQL example). Especially watch for this setting when using Oracle.
  • All stored procedures must be backed up and restored (see --routines switch).

It is also recommended that backup and restore is reviewed regurarily, to ensure that backed up data can really be restored!

For more information about databases see: Preparing MySQL Database for Installation and Preparing Oracle Database for Installation

Backup the codeBeamer installation directory

The best practice is to back up the complete codeBeamer installation directory daily. That makes restores must easier, because you don't have to worry about lost settings or finding codeBeamer binaries or similar.

The most important directory of to back up is the $CB_HOME/repository directory. That contains the documents, SCM repositories, Wiki documents and similar files. So in any case ensure that this directory is completely backed up. For details see Important Files and Directories

Other best practices and hints

  • Use incremental backups - like rsync. That can make a really big difference in backup time if you don't have to copy all files, just those which are really changed !
  • Run the backup at least daily
  • The backup scripts should send an email about the result to administrator(s). This can help to spot backup errors (like running out disk space). For example here is our own script that executes backups and sends email:
    #!/bin/sh
    rm cb-backup.log
    ./cb-backup.sh 2>&1 | tee cb-backup.log
    cat cb-backup.log| mail -r backup@intland.com -s "Codebeamer.com backup's log" backup@intland.com
    cat cb-backup.log >>backup.log
    

  • Test regurarly that your data can be restored (=develop an recovery strategy).