You can make a backup of an entire database or certain table spaces. Doing so creates a copy of the database or table space on separate media, such as tape or another server. Backups can be made while the database is active or inactive, depending on the type of recovery logs you use.
Backups are an important part of database maintenance. How you create backups depends on the type of backup and version of Db2 you use. For this reason, read Db2 documentation on creating backups for the Db2 version you are using.
The following is information specific to backups created for geodatabases in Db2:
- When making a backup of a geodatabase in Db2 for z/OS, you must back up all databases in the database subsystem that compose the geodatabase. At a minimum, this will be two databases: the one that stores the geodatabase repository and one that stores user-defined data.
- If you are creating an offline backup, stop any service that accesses your geodatabase before you take the database offline.