Backing up Your JobTracker Database

To protect your business from a loss of data, it's important to backup your Moraware JobTracker database and any attached files on a daily basis. It is critical that you automate this process so the backups are available when you need them. If your database is being hosted on our server, we take care of this for you.

If you already have an automated backup for your server you still need to add a step for JobTracker. Since SQL Server is always running, your JobTracker database will always be open and will not be included in your current backup process.

Recommended Backup Procedure:

1. The most important step is to run a Full backup with maintenance every night. The database maintenance does a few steps, the most important is validating the integrity of the database, to make sure the file has not been corrupted by a failing disk drive. The maintenance step also fixes internal fragmentation to prevent queries from becoming slower over time as you add or change data.
2. Next you should copy the JobTracker "Data" folder off-site. If you don't do this, then a disk drive failure can cause you to lose all your data. We have seen many customers experience drive failures over the years, so you should take this risk seriously.
3. A nightly full backup only allows you to restore the database to the previous night's data. If losing an entire day's data is too much to risk, then you should also take frequent Log backups and copy those off-site as well. We recommend taking a Log backup every hour, but you could do this as frequently as every few minutes if you prefer. The nice thing about Log backups is they are small, and only contain the data that has changed since the previous Log backup. So the total size of 24 hourly log backups is not much different from 240 log backups every 6 minutes.
4. The final point to consider is how many backup copies to keep around at once. If you are copying files off-site once a day, then you need to make sure to keep at least the past 24 hours of backup files so they all have a chance to get copied. Full backups can take up a lot of space, so there is a trade-off between keeping many backup copies and taking up too much disk space. By default JobTracker will keep the past 24 hours of backup files.
   

To Automate the Backup of your JobTracker Database:

1. Create a scheduled task to create a full backup every night by running the file:
   /Program Files/Moraware JobTracker/Bin/BackupDB.exe

   Video on how to create a scheduled task

2. Copy the server folder: /Program Files/Moraware JobTracker/Data to tape, CD, or other backup media and store it offsite. You might want to consider a service like http://remotedatabackups.com or http://jungledisk.com to do this for you.
3. Create a scheduled task to create a log backup every hour by running the file:
   /Program Files/Moraware JobTracker/Bin/BackupDB.exe /log
4. Verify that your data is being backed up correctly. To do this, find a recent backup tape, CD, or other media and verify:
   • There is a current date on the file: /Program Files/Moraware JobTracker/Data/Backup/Database(timestamp).bak
   • The entire Data folder is being backed up, which includes all the attached files.
     

To Manually Backup your JobTracker Database:

1. Go to Admin > Backup Database.
   
2. Click OK to backup the database and perform maintenance.
3. Messages display as each step of the backup process begins and when the backup process is complete. Click Close. The backup of the live database is written to: /Program Files/Moraware JobTracker/Data/Backup/Database(timestamp).bak
4. To complete the backup, copy the server folder: /Program Files/Moraware JobTracker/Data/ to tape, CD, or other backup media and store it offsite. This Data folder contains a backup of the database as well as any attached files.

Advanced Settings:

The JobTracker Configuration Tool is only available if you are running Moraware JobTracker version 3.0 or later on your own server.

On the server where Moraware JobTracker is installed - Go to Start > All Programs > Moraware JobTracker > Moraware JobTracker Configuration 

• Database Backup Settings
  • From the menu bar of the Configuration Tool, click on Server > Settings
    
  • Minimum Backup Retention Hours - determines when old backup files are deleted by JobTracker after performing a full backup. Keeping backup files around longer provides more recovery options, but also takes up more disk space.
    • Maximum Previous Full Backups to Retain - works in conjunction with the above setting to make sure that the backups don't take up too much disk space. This should only come into play if someone is manually creating full backups from the JobTracker application. You should have the retention hours determine how long to keep the backups around, and use this setting to prevent manual backups from causing problems with disk space. 
    • File Name - you shouldn't need to set this. It allows you to change the file extension of the backup files from .bak to something else. The purpose is to allow using HyperBac software to compress the backup files, saving disk space if your backup files are very large.

• Creating Backups
  • from the Config tool From the menu bar of the Configuration Tool, click on Database> Backup...
    
    • Full Backup - creates a copy of the entire database. When you generate a full backup a log backup is also automatically generated (when using the Full recovery model.)
    • Differential - captures only the changes since the last full backup. We do not recommend using this because it is better to take a full backup every day, and frequent log backups in between.
    • Log - captures changes to the database since the last log backup. Restoring a database from a Log backup requires a full backup, plus all the log backups taken since that full backup. When determining how often to run a log backup, consider how many hours of data you are willing to lose. Taking frequent log backups doesn't require significant extra storage space, so it is recommended to take a log backup frequently, such as every hour. This will create many backup files, but they will be small.
    • Perform Maintenance - this only applies when you are creating a Full backup. The database maintenance verifies the integrity of the database and fixes internal fragmentation inside the database. This is optional because it takes extra time, and would impact user performance during heavy usage of your database. It is best to run this during off-hours. 

• Restore
  • From the menu bar of the Configuration Tool, click on Database> Restore...
    • When you restore a log backup, it first restores the latest full backup and then the all log backups between the full backup and the selected log backup.
    • When you restore a differential backup, it first restores the corresponding full backup and then the differential backup.

• SQL Server Recovery Model
  • From the menu bar of the Configuration Tool, click on Database> Recovery Model...
    • Full - (Recommended) this allows you to take Full and Log backups as recommended in the procedure above
    • Simple - only full and differential backups can be taken, so it limits recovery options
    • Bulk - a special-purpose recovery model that doesn't apply to JobTracker -- you should not need to use this