•Fast and convenient restore The information stored in the IDB enables you to quickly find the media required for a restore, and therefore makes the restore much faster. It also offers you the convenience of being able to browse for files and directories to be restored.
•Backup management The information stored in the IDB enables you to verify how backups were done. You can also configure various reports using the Data Protector reporting functionality.
•Media management The information stored in the IDB enables Data Protector to allocate media during backup, copy, and object consolidation sessions, track media attributes, group media in different media pools, and track media locations in tape libraries.
IDB size and growth consideration
The IDB can grow very big and have a significant impact on backup performance and the Cell Manager system. Therefore, the Data Protector administrator must understand the IDB and, according to needs, decide which information to keep in the IDB and for how long. It is the administrator’s task to balance between restore time and functionality on the one hand, and the size and growth of the IDB on the other. Data Protector offers two key parameters to assist in balancing your needs: logging level and catalog protection. See also “IDB growth and performance” on page 197.
The IDB on the Windows Cell Manager
IDB location
The IDB on the Windows Cell Manager is located in the directory Data_Protector_program_data\db40 (Windows Server 2008) or Data_Protector_home\db40 (other Windows systems).
IDB format
The IDB on the Windows Cell Manager stores all text information in UNICODE,
The UNICODE format allows for full support of filenames and messages localized to other languages.
188 | The Data Protector internal database |