The Docstore is a new system service included in the updated Disk Safe format in the 5.14.3 release of Server Backup Manager. The purpose of the docstore is to simplify the Disk Safe format and provide a consistent way of accessing the data in the Disk Safe. Beginning with version 5.14.3, all Disk Safes must be converted to this new format. The Docstore process is integral to all Disk Safe operations (such as backups and restores) and should be allowed to run uninterrupted.
What To Expect When Using Docstore
The Docstore is not a very big application, and does not need to be updated very often once it is installed. However, if you are updating the Docstore, you are probably also updating the SBM packages on the machine, which will most likely cause the replication to fail when the CDP server is restarted.
What happens to site-to-site replication tasks during a Docstore update?
- If the SBM has Site-to-Site replication configured and updates to a Docstore release, the tasks won't spawn when a replication task is executed while Disk Safes are being upgraded.
- If the replication task tries to send to a non-Docstore SBM, don't worry. The metadata language hasn't changed, so Docstore metadata can be sent to any SBM before or after version 5.14.3.
- If the replication task tries to send to an SBM that is in the process of being upgraded to Docstore, the task will fail, and the target Disk Safe will have a recovery point marked as "Replication Interrupted."
Tips and Tricks
- When the Docstore service has been started, let it run until the task is complete.
- "100% CPU Usage" is normal when running the Docstore service.
- If the Docstore conversion is interrupted by restarting the cdp-server, the conversion will start over from scratch. Do not hit reset during a conversion.
- If the cdp-server is restarted during conversion, the Disk Safe will remain in a "closed" state (even after the conversion finishes) and must be manually reopened.
- Attempting to open a Disk Safe that is still converting will result in the following message: "The selected Disk Safe cannot be opened until metadata conversion finishes."
- The Docstore conversion only happens on startup or when attaching a Disk Safe.
- The "close on startup" option does not prevent conversions.
- Old Disk Safes will contain a 'metadata' folder in them. This is the old unconverted data and will not be deleted.
- When a conversion begins, the 'metadata2' folder is created. New Disk Safes added after conversion will only contain this folder.
- If the conversion is interrupted, the previous attempts to convert will be renamed 'metadata2.1', 'metadata2.2', etc.
- The metadata2 folder contains a conversion.log file that displays information about what is currently being converted. When the conversion is completed, an empty file named 'finishedConverting' displays in the metadata2 folder.
- Ten Disk Safes are converted at a time.
- MySQL customers with large databases may be the most heavily hit by the conversion costs due to the amount of data stored per backup.
- If the Disk Safe directory is renamed while the cdp-server is turned off, it would fail to trigger conversion on startup because it can't find the Disk Safe at the expected location anymore. If this happens, detach the Disk Safe in the UI and reattach it when you are ready to start conversion. This method can can be used to help customers manage costly conversions.