a fresh approach to essbase backups

8/12/2019 A Fresh Approach to Essbase Backups

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A Fresh Approach to Essbase BackupsMethods to automate the backup process for Essbase are certainly available but tend to becomplicated and often times more than a business user maintaining Essbase wants to take on.Most companies have resources capable of writing old-fashioned hard-coded ESSCMD,MaxL & batch scripts to automate the process but the scripts are cumbersome to maintain,collide with existing processes and when something does go wrong like leaving Essbase in aread-only mode, the administrator only finds out in the morning! Moreover, Hyperionadministrators may not have time or may not have enough technical knowledge to maintainor modify these scripts. On the other hand, IT systems analysts may not have enough

business background to modify the process. From time to time, the process easily becomesoutdated and not able to meet the business requirement and needs.

Star Command Center (SCC) gives Hyperion administrators the ultimate solution toautomate these processes in a well-organized and manageable way without writing anycustom scripts. Using SCC to automate the Essbase backup process can save an incredible ofamount of time versus building and maintaining custom scripts.

The following steps details one approach to setting up an Essbase back up process using StarCommand Center and the Essbase and Utilities plug-in tasks:

Step #1 . Create a backup directory for each Essbase application and database. Note the highlighted areas in theexample below:


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Create a task Create backup folder using the SCC Utilities Task Pack as the first stepunder the process Backup DemoApp process. Fill in the parameters such as the pathand directory name. Setup time 2 minutes.

Step #2 . Disable connections for the target Essbase application:


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Create a task to Disables Connections using the SCC Essbase Plug-in . Setup time less than 1 minute.

Step #3 . Backup the target database to text file(s):


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Create an Export Data task using the SCC Essbase Plug-in to export data fromEssbase to a text file. Setup time 1 minute.

Step #4 . Detect if any errors occurred during the Data Export:


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This task is designed ensure the Export Data task has successfully run without error. Ifthere is an error, it will skip the ne xt three tasks: Reset Data, DataLoad & Error FileExistence Export. Setup time 2 minutes.

Step #5 . Assuming the previous step is successful, clear the data in the Essbase cube to remove fragmentation:


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Create a task to Reset Data using the SCC Essbase Task Pack . Fill in the Essbaseapplication and database names. Setup time less than 1 minute.

Step #6 . Load data from the latest backup file(s) to the target Essbase database:


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Create a task to Data Load Text File using the SCC Essbase Task Pack . F ill in theEssbase application and database names as well as the data file name. Setup time lessthan 1 minute.

Step #7 . Detect if any errors occurred during the Data Load:


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This task is designed ensure the Load Data task has successfully run without error. Ifthere is an error, it will simply skip to the following task. Setup time 2 minutes.

Step #8 . Create current date/time directory in the backup directory:


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Create a task to Create new folder (data) using the SCC Utilities Task Pack . Fill in theroot path where a new folder will be created in the DD-MM-YYYY format. Setup time less than 1 minute.

Step #9 . Move backup file(s) & log file(s) to the current date/time directory:


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Create a task to Copy Logs and fill in the required Source and Target path and fileinformation. Setup time 2 minutes.

Step #10 . Delete processing logs:


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Create a task to Delete Logs using the SCC Utilities Task Pack . Setup time less than1 minute.

Step #11 . Delete any date/time directory which is 15+ days old:


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Create a task to Delete log folders (15+ days old) using the SCC Utilities Task Pack .This unique task will dynamically remove any folder and all its contents with a namingconvention of DD -MM- YYYY. Note: all other folders are ignored. Setup time lessthan 1 minute.

Step #12 . Enable connections for the target Essbase application:


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Create a task to Enable Connections using the SCC Essbase Task Pack . F ill in theEssbase application and database names. Setup time less than 1 minute.

Step #13 . Send out email notifications to in the event the process fails:


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Tips:

1. Review the Star Analytics plug-ins inventory and understand what the plug-ins can do for you. A lot of time canbe saved by using plug-ins, instead of writing custom code.

2. Based on the above example, each task takes 2 minutes or less to setup and not a single line of custom codewas used to setup this semi-complicated process.

3. Use Star Command Centers environment or process variables when setting up the tasks. Most tasks abovehave hardcoded values that can leverage environment variables.

a fresh approach to essbase backups

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