Tracking changes to tables and views

Deployment options: Netezza Performance Server for Cloud Pak for Data SystemNetezza Performance Server for Cloud Pak for DataNetezza Performance Server for Cloud Pak for Data as a Service

To support the incremental backup and restore optimizations for tables and views (including materialized views) that haven't been modified, the CREATE DATABASE and ALTER DATABASE commands accept an extra TRACK CHANGES option:

CREATE DATABASE NAME [TRACK CHANGES [ON | OFF]]

ALTER DATABASE NAME [TRACK CHANGES [ON | OFF]]

By default, a database is created with TRACK CHANGES ON. Incremental backup of the specific database does not attempt to retrieve inserted and or deleted rows for a specific table when it is known that no rows have been inserted or deleted or updated since the last backup. Where the last backup is the initial full backup for a cumulative backup and is the preceding backup, full or incremental, for a differential backup.

Insertions and deletions (an update operation counts as an insertion and a deletion) are tracked separately for this optimization. No empty (zero-row) inserted rows and or deleted rows files are generated by incremental backup for incremental restore to process, and the cost savings on both backup and restore can be significant when a large fraction of the tables in the database is unchanged between backups.