Windchill cold backup & restore - disaster recovery

[gchampoux]

As we prepare to deploy Windchill Intralink 9.1, I need to come up with a strategy for disaster recovery.
Can you share how you do it?

Currently, we have Intralink 3.4 on a UNIX server, and it is simple to backup and restore everything.
It's all in one folder structure.
We back it up nightly (cold) and can restore by simply copying all files back to their original locations.

PTC's documentation implies that Windchill backup & restore is basically as simple.
However, this is now under Windows, where backup & restore is usually more complicated.
I suspect that there will be more involved, including Windows services & registry entries.

Any advice is appreciated.

Gerry

[ScottPearson]

Gerry,

I realize that your post is old, but did you ever get a detailed "How To" response to your question about backing up and restoring a Windchill system?

I am currently in the same circumstance as you were in last year: moving from Intralink 3.4 under Unix with Oracle to Intralink 10.0 under SQL Server. Establishing a solid backup and recovery procedure is hot on our list.

I have read these (and other)available guides found in PTC's online support site:

1. Windchill 10.0 Specialized Administration Guide (Jan 2012)

Chapter 12, Ensuring Proper Backup and Recovery (...which also makes reference to the Windchill Directory Server Administration Guide.)

(Note: Windchill Backup and Recovery Planning Technical Brief (May 2012)

This is the closest thing to a backup "roadmap" I have located on the PTC website. On the last page of this guide, it references more than a dozen other guides which contain related information. (Don't you just love how PTC's guides always refer to several other multi-hundred-page PTC guides?!?)

The overall backup process seems a bit complicated since there are several pieces to the Windchill puzzle: the Windchill application, the database, and the vaulted CAD data files. If there is a single backup utility from PTC that simplifies the process, I haven't yet found it.

But if you havefound -- or developed -- a detailed "How To" for both the backup process and the recovery process, I'd love to see it you are willing to share.

Thanks!

[gchampoux]

Hi Scott,



Unfortunately, I do not recall if I received any replies.

Certainly, none went back to the exploder.



After some tests I found that I could backup nearly the same as we did under Intralink 3.4.

Every night, we shut down all Windchill components including the Oracle database.

Then we do a cold backup of the software & database folders, and restart everything.



To recover, we first do a fresh minimal Windchill installation.
This is needed to get the Oracle services defined.

Then we shut down Oracle, recover the backup, and redefine our custom Windows services.
This has actually been tested and works quite well.



I assume we should be able to do the same when we upgrade from 9.1 to 10.x.





Gerry Champoux
Lead Engineer
Information Technology

Williams International
2280 E. West Maple Road
Walled Lake, MI 48390-3828

' (248) 960-2816

7 (248) 960-2607

* -

þ www.williams-int.com <outbind: 123=" www.williams-int.com=">

[RonThellen]

This is one of my biggest complaints about Windchill documentation. All the information you need to know about a specific topic seems to be spread across multiple documents. When we were at your stage of our migration I went through the same thing. Start reading one document, which references another, which references yet another, and so on. You have provided a good example of this. Another example that immediately comes to mind is visualization. While working through our initial setup and configuration, I created many detailed company-specific documents of our own, each tailored to the specific topic. Here is an excerpt from our document on visualization.

Notes about Visualization and Publishing

The following documents were referenced or provide additional information:

· ProductView Adapters Installation and Configuration Guide<">http://sp.gcsd.harris.com/sites/cmas/Team/Shared%20Documents/ProINTRALINK%209.1/PTC%20Documentation%20(Downloaded)/Visualization%20and%20Publishing/ProductView%20Adapters%20Installation%20and%20Configuration%20Guide.pdf>

o Chapter 1, Installing the ProductView Adapters

o Chapter 3, Introduction to the ProductView Adapter for Pro/ENGINEER

o Chapter 4, Configuring the Pro/ENGINEER Adapter

o Chapter 7, Server-Controlled Publishing

o Chapter 9, Advanced Adapter Configurations

o Chapter 10, Troubleshooting Guide

o Appendixes

· ProductView Adapters Recipe Editor Quick Reference<">http://sp.gcsd.harris.com/sites/cmas/Team/Shared%20Documents/ProINTRALINK%209.1/PTC%20Documentation%20(Downloaded)/Visualization%20and%20Publishing/ProductView%20Adapters%20Recipe%20Editor%20Quick%20Reference.pdf>

· Windchill Business Administrator’s Guide<">http://sp.gcsd.harris.com/sites/cmas/Team/Shared%20Documents/ProINTRALINK%209.1/PTC%20Documentation%20(Downloaded)/Windchill%20Business%20Administrator’s%20Guide.pdf>

o Chapter 20, Visualization Services

§ Overview

§ Architecture

§ Troubleshooting

§ Visualization Collaboration

§ Creating and Enabling Server-side Watermarks

§ Exporting Watermarks for ProductView

§ Copy Forward Functionality

§ Using Publish Rules

§ Windchill Visualization Service Properties

· Windchill System Administrator’s Guide<">http://sp.gcsd.harris.com/sites/cmas/Team/Shared%20Documents/ProINTRALINK%209.1/PTC%20Documentation%20(Downloaded)/Windchill%20System%20Administrator’s%20Guide.pdf>

o Chapter 9, Worker Agent

§ Introduction to the Worker Agent

§ Before You Begin

§ Guidelines for Configuring a Worker “Common File System”

§ Configuring the Worker Agent

§ Worker on the Same Machine

§ Configuring the Worker on a Different Windows Machine

§ Defining Publish Queue and Worker Availability Settings

§ Testing the Worker Agent Configuration

§ Using WVS with Multiple Background Servers

o Appendix E, Troubleshooting the Worker Agent

Additional information can be found in:

· DIVISION Visual Collaboration Services Using the Recipe Editor with CAD Object Adapters<">http://sp.gcsd.harris.com/sites/cmas/Team/Shared%20Documents/ProINTRALINK%209.1/PTC%20Documentation%20(Downloaded)/Visualization%20and%20Publishing/DIVISION%20Visual%20Collaboration%20Services%20Using%20the%20Recipe%20Editor.pdf>

· General Visualization Publishing Configuration<">http://sp.gcsd.harris.com/sites/cmas/Team/Shared%20Documents/ProINTRALINK%209.1/PTC%20Documentation%20(Downloaded)/Visualization%20and%20Publishing/General%20Visualization%20Publishing%20Configuration.pdf>

· On PTC’s web site:

o Creating Additional Publishing Queues for Multiple Instances of CAD Workers<">https://www.ptc.com/appserver/cs/view/solution.jsp?n=138537> (TAN 138537)

o How to Set Publishing Priorities Based on Job Type and Source<">https://www.ptc.com/appserver/cs/view/solution.jsp?n=132939> (TAN 132939)

o How to Configure Multiple Workers (Not Instances) on a Single Machine<">https://www.ptc.com/appserver/cs/view/solution.jsp?n=135487> (TAN 135487)

o Converting Cache for Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0 M060<">http://www.ptc.com/appserver/wcms/standards/freefull_cskdb.jsp?im_dbkey=85239&icg_dbkey=900>

· On the PTC/USER forum:

o CADWorker Setup<">http://portal.ptcuser.org/p/fo/st/thread=43992>


Why doesn’t PTC have all that we need to know about visualization in a single document or, at the very least, have something similar to what I have done above in a “master document” on setting up visualization.

Having said that, I know PTC (Jane Zupfer, VP Windchill Marketing) has been in here quite a bit lately and she is actively working towards improving the Windchill documentation. (thank you, Jane). This kind of feedback is what PTC needs to see in order to address what the customer sees as shortcomings in the documentation.

Ron

[Invisigoth]

Over four years later, not much has changed