Expiration of DB2 backups and transaction log objects

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Concepts that are associated with expiring DB2® backup objects and DB2 transaction log files are described.

Data Protection for IBM® Domino® uses the DB2 Recovery API to access the DB2 IBM Storage Protect Agent. When Data Protection for HCL Domino processes a backup, it informs the DB2 IBM Storage Protect Agent to back up the DB2 data to the IBM Storage Protect server. During backup processing, Data Protection for HCL Domino creates a group of IBM Storage Protect objects. These objects describe the contents of each IBM Storage Protect object that is created by the DB2 IBM Storage Protect Agent. Each object describes the type of backup and the name of the DB2 enabled Notes® databases that are contained in the backup. The IBM Storage Protect group object has a reference to the object created by the DB2 IBM Storage Protect Agent. Policy settings are applied to the IBM Storage Protect group object. As a result, when a backup version is no longer needed, the objects that are referenced by the IBM Storage Protect group object must also be deactivated.

These IBM Storage Protect group objects can be deactivated by using the db2inactivateobjs command. This command displays how to issue the DB2 IBM Storage Protect Agent db2adutl utility to deactivate these objects. The db2adutl utility ensures that information about the DB2 server remains consistent after objects are deactivated.

The Domino DB2 database transaction logs are archived automatically by the DB2 server (with the DB2 IBM Storage Protect Agent) to the IBM Storage Protect server. The db2archivelog command forces a backup of the Domino DB2 database transaction log file. This command can be used to ensure that the latest updates are available during an alternate DB2 database rollforward to the current time operation.
Note: Because transaction log file names are unique, they do not expire because of version limit.

Archived transaction log files are retained on the IBM Storage Protect server when a database backup exists that needs these log files for a complete recovery.