3.3

Backing up the iNEWS Database
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• Do not store archived material beneath daily show production queues. Segregate archive
material under it’s own directory.
• If you archive old shows on your system, you might want to produce dbdump tapes that
cover old years For instance, ARCHIVE.2008 through ARCHIVE.2009, and store them
separately.
• It is a good idea to make extra copies of the tapes and store them off site. If your
computer room is destroyed, you can buy new servers. But if the computer room is
destroyed with all backup tapes stored in the room, your data is lost. Many corporations
use off-site storage services for backup tapes.
Backing up the iNEWS Database
Database backups provide insurance against system calamities. Also, to free up space in the
database, you can back up stories to a tape—or to a file, which can be transferred to another
computer for storage—and then remove those stories from the database.
Avid recommends making frequent backups of important material and the entire database.
To back up database items, you will need to use the dbdump console command.
The dbdump Command
The dbdump command backs up the news database, including the People files, show
rundowns, wire stories, and root database information such as user accounts, passwords, and
directory traits. All user, database, and group traits are stored within the database.
The simplest form of the dbdump command is:
NRCS-A# dbdump c
The c stands for create. When you use this command, it overwrites any information currently
on the tape and does a full database backup of everything—except the contents of any queue
or directory with its skip flag enabled.
n
The skip flag is a database trait that prevents the dbdump c command from backing up
contents of queues and directories. Generally, Wires queues and the Dead queue are usually
skip-flagged so they are not backed up. This results in less time for the backup and less tape
used. If a dbdump reaches the end of the tape and still has more data to back up, you will be
prompted for another tape. For more information on skip flags—also known as the Skip
Backup database trait—see the iNEWS Newsroom Computer System Setup and
Configuration Manual.