P4 Shadowing

[drjf4]

Has anyone worked w/shadowing much? We are running SC 5.1 and for reporting purposes looking into shadowing the incidents file.

In the DB Mgt & Admin GDE on p237 it talks about a little maneuver that moves entries from the sqlqueue file and that it is added to scstart(????).

Just messing around on our development system I kicked off the -que:sql from a DOS prompt then went back into the system status window later and killed it . . . just pushing buttons, but if anyone has some useful fill-in-the-blanks information I would be glad to hear it.

[tommy]

Before the -que:sql works you need to shadow the file first. To shadow a file you must be the only person logged on and no background processes must be running. Then you can shadow the file.

The scenter -que:sql command then needs to be added to sc.cfg in order to have that process startup everytime the server is restarted.

Make sure you read the manuals about RDBMS

[drjf4]

We have an Oracle guy who'll be sticking close by on this since we can get in over our heads very quickly in RDBMS world but will definitely spend more time in the manuals before we ease this over to production.

I don't remember seeing a reference to the sc.cfg file in the documentation so thanks for pointing that out to me.

You probably already picked up on this but I will go ahead and establish the NEWBIE ALERT. Now that that is out of the way, also, several people have asked how often the updates occur in asynchronous shadowing. If that parameter is placed in the sc.cfg file, how often do the updates occur?

Thanks.

[glg]

If you're on unix, the command will go into scstart. sc.cfg is windows only on your version (all start using it at SM 7).

[tommy]

If you're on unix, the command will go into scstart. sc.cfg is windows only on your version (all start using it at SM 7).

Tip "DOS prompt then went back into the system status window "

As for how often updates are done. That is a parameter you can add to the start command. I am not sure what the default is but it is either 30 or 60 seconds. But you can verify that by starting it, then in sc with admin user goto system monitor and look at the processes. Look at the idle time and refresh periodicially. It will count up to 30 or 60 then reset to 0. That way you can see what the refresh rate is.

[drjf4]

Okay, a UNIX vs. Windows deal. I did see the reference in the doc to scstart and could not find scstart but after the earlier post to look at sc.cfg, that was there. I will look further into the syntax for the refresh rates.

[glg]

Tip "DOS prompt then went back into the system status window "

Heh. In that case, sc.cfg should be in the RUN directory, and I think in the start menu too. sc.cfg is a list of commands run when the system starts up, so you just add the line to that file like Tommy said.

[drjf4]

FYI - The post-mortem . . .

Per mgt directive I ran the the P4 shadowing process against our entire development database. Database size is 6.24 GB.

Total runtime for the process was almost 18 hours; total downtime, just over 29 hours.

I appreciate the help.

My final quests will be to verify (per them) that ". . . there is no options to reduce the downtime. Such as only loading a subset of the data. Perhaps only load the last month or two." then let them decide how to play that production-wise.

Again, thanks much for your input.