Jim Phillips comments on a DBQUIESCE failure with Backup+ and wonders
why ORBiT is ignoring him:

We're not trying to ignore you .. we're having networking problems
internally which has delayed communications between Tech Support and R&D
(upgrading our 56K link to a T-1 between the offices has been an
interesting challenge that we've not yet overcome).

To be fair, the problem that you're seeing is the result of the
quiescing interface not being able to quiesce the database. There was at
least one problem in the DBQUIESCE mechanism that should've been fixed
by your updating. That isn't to say there won't be more. When we last
pursued this, we needed to make sure you were on the latest fix.

I guess I'm going to get into some product details here, so I should say
"Plug Alert":

ORBiT's ZDT backup tries a multi-level approach to quiescing. There are
also enough knobs to turn to customize that process that sometimes
things don't behave as intended. In any event, the main methodology is
to establish a timeout period within which everyone is quiesced. By
default I think that is 90 seconds, but there's a knob for that too. If
everyone is quiesced within that period, the backup completes. However,
if there is a long transaction in progress (and we determine
transactions in progress by calling various APIs such as DBQUIESCE or by
checking with the Transaction Manager (XM)), it is possible for that
time to expire without quiescing everyone. In that case, we have two
options:

1. Report a message on the console and let the user decide whether to
retry the quiesce, cancel the entire operation, or complete the backup
without quiescing.

2. If another knob has been twisted, complete the backup regardless.

In Therm-O-Link's case, the latter was taken - there is a JCW called
BACKUPSYNCANYWAY that was set and tells BACKUP+ to sync regardless of
whether or not transactions were in progress. This indicates one of two
possibilities: the DBQUIESCE mechanism either indicated that there was a
long transaction in progress or there was an error with the quiesce. I
would tend to suspect the long transaction now that you're on the latest
power patch.

I will have our support people contact you again today to follow up on
resolving this issue. Please be assured that we do not intend to ignore
you nor any of our valued customers.

Regards,


Mark Klein
VP Technology
ORBiT Group