doing maintenance on a different adb

[martinwcole]

I have a situation where I have currently 21 different facilities, each in its own folder, and each having exactly the same adb, just different data. Because we are using T/S, none are shadowed.

What I need to do is every morning, at maybe 5:30 AM, open each of the facilities and run maintenance - which would include both operations and scripts. I'm currently thinking about a good approach.

And currently, I'm thinking about making a separate program that would run from a windows scheduler, that would open each of the 21 facilities (one at a time) and put everything within a single function that would run the needed maintenance and then go back to the original main program, and run the next one.

Has anyone ever done this or have any ideas?

[DaveM]

Re: doing maintenance on a different adb

Maybe??

I have run a seperate adb on the same stuff like;

my sales adb has a duplicate called work.adb except it is only used for maintenance. all the same scripts and everything are in work.adb. It has a different autoexec, Now, in the autoexec of this one adb that does all the maintenance i need. It shuts itself off when it is complete. You could have it call the next work.adb in another folder(then the next then...)?

That could be set up to run on startup if you wished and it would round robin until complete.

Just a thought.



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[martinwcole]

Re: doing maintenance on a different adb

I have a setup like that with one of my clients, a hospital. There are 2 adb's in the same folder with all the same files, but a different autoexec, etc.

I've got it working if I open it directly. Now I've got to figure out how to run it from a completely separate folder

am going to toy with this approach:
have a table in the "maintenance" adb/adb_folder that has the last date each of the other adbs were updated

1 the maint loads from a scheduler
2 checks the first date in the table that is less than today
3 loads that adb (which closes the maintenance adb)
4 at the end of the maint run, have the called adb update the record in the maint adb, and then load the maint adb (which closes the called adb)
5 as long as it can find a record in the table with a date less than today, it keeps running

else, it exits

One thing I have noticed, unless I open a form and run the maintenance function from the form, I have to keep clicking on it to keep it going - but is no big deal - am just running it from a form

[DaveM]

Re: doing maintenance on a different adb

Martin,

What is it updating?? Is it a date in a table??

How many tasks have to be completed in each adb??

I don't understand having to keep clicking to keep something going. That just does not sound right. A function should be able to run without clicking more than one time.???.

The maintenance adb I was describing is an exat duplicate of the main adb except for the autoexec script.

The autoexec should be able to call the function/form/other and then call another maintenance.adb in another folder and then shut itself down on completion.


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[Finian Lennon]

Re: doing maintenance on a different adb

Martin:

Our server setup is somewhat similar so maybe this app will give you some ideas. It runs an "Update Production Index" and "Pack" of all tables contained in sub-folders of a given folder.

IOW, if all your locations are installed in separate sub-folders of C:\Data then it will process each sub-folder and perform the requested actions. It maintains a log and shuts down on completion.

You can install the maintenance application anywhere on the same server.

Caveats:
1)the maintenance code runs from the autoexec so you need to exercise care before starting it up. In the zip file, the autoexec is effectively turned off with an "End" as the first line.
2)The top level path (i.e. the top level folder containing the sub-folders) must be hard coded into the autoexec script.

[martinwcole]

Re: doing maintenance on a different adb

thanks a million, Finnian

All the facilities are parallel - i.e,, none of them are subfolders
I currently have a separate (also parallel) folder/app named maintenance
at the onarrive event of a button on its startup form, it loads a table of all the facilities, queries for ones where lastupdated < date() and loads that adb

the loaded adb runs a function that runs several scripts and operations, and reloads the maintenance app

it keeps looping until finished

one problem I am having is that it runs perfectly for about 4 apps, and errors out
if I start it again does another 4 and errors out
like a stack issue or something
currently, there are 21 apps to update
I am going to study yours

[DaveM]

Re: doing maintenance on a different adb

It sounds like a timing issue. If there is no pause between the steps, it could be loading all the apps/steps at almost the same time. If it is trying to run 2 steps on the same table at the same time, it could error.

Running from functions(udf) usually stop that, but not always.
Sometimes it is necessary to put a pause inbetween.


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[martinwcole]

Re: doing maintenance on a different adb

no - it runs them one at a time
I haven't tried running operations or scripts on a different adb
I know how to open forms on a different adb - form@xxxx\ddd
will experiment with that

I'm convinced its either a memory leak or a stack issue

[martinwcole]

Re: doing maintenance on a different adb

success

instead of reloading the maintenance adb from the facility adb, I am closing the facility adb/a5.close() and playing a batch file that loads the maintenance adb - it keeps going back and forth until all the adbs have had the maint run

the scheduler will run the same batch file which will start the process

I tried, but could not figure out the syntax to run a function on another adb without loading the adb. It may not be possible.

But - who cares - its working!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DaveM]

Re: doing maintenance on a different adb

COOL

[csda1]

Re: doing maintenance on a different adb

Hi Martin,

I tried, but could not figure out the syntax to run a function on another adb without loading the adb. It may not be possible

It is not possible to run a function in another database application. However, it is possible to run a script in another adb as follows

Script_play("scriptname@filepath\databasename.alb")
Script_play_local("scriptname@filepath\databasename.alb")

It runs the script in the context of the current application, so it's just like it was in the current database list of scripts. This means that any variables are used and the code is run in the current version (thus, e.g. you could run a V8 piece of code while in V9).

Thus, you could run a script in application X, but it would be running from application Y. Any references to the database would show as Y, so anything in the code of X that references any path (implicitly or explicitly) would have to be passed variables with a full path and name to application X. This could be done by using Script_play_local() and presetting some local variables, otherwise you could use some shared or global variables (although I never recommend that).

Also, many Alpha Five functions and methods will/can work on external data dictionaries, although the naming structure is not always clear, nor is it documented typically. Thus, it is possible to pack and reindex without ever being in the database, as well as many other maintenance functions. In fact, you don't even need to run code from there.

[martinwcole]

Re: doing maintenance on a different adb

Thanks Ira.

I've got it working perfectly - so far.

I have an adb called maintenance, and I have 21 folders(different medical facilities) that all have the exact same adb

a scheduler that will run will open a batch file that opens the maintenance app - it looks in a table for the first facility where the lastupdated field is less that today - and opens that adb

that adb, in the auto exec, runs the maintenance routine, calls the batch file, and closes

thus there is a loop that runs untill all the apps have been updated

then it copies all the data for the facilities to a folder called dataonly
then it copies that folder to a day-of-the-week folder to 2 backup locations - one on the server, and one on an external drive

thus I have a backup for every day of the week and in 2 locations, and all the facilities are ready for another day

For now that will suffice, but I am going to study Finnian's routine and your suggestions and see if I can improve on it.