Problem with backup at 3 AM and locating filemaker

[Justin Grewe]

The way my college runs the Filemaker databases is off 2 servers and then another server which has FileMaker Unlimited and webconnector. The problem is that the two filemaker servers shut down at 3 AM to backup. The other server is still running so that after the backup and the two servers are back online, the FileMaker Unlimited server doesn't know that they are back online. The way the college has it set up right now is they have a filemaker script that checks every hour for the databases. This is not efficient and I was wondering if there was another way to go about it?

Thanks.

Justin Grewe

[Justin Grewe]

I need to rephrase this question. The problem is that when the two servers that are running FileMaker server shut down for backup, the other server which is running FileMaker Unlimited and Webconnector, not FileMaker Server(Which has the ability to automatically find the databases) is still running. Therefore when the two servers with FileMaker server turn on again the server with FileMaker Unlimited has no way of finding the new databases on FileMaker Server. Is there a way for webconnector and FileMaker Unlimited to automatically find the databases without using the script we have which runs every hour locating the databases on the FileMaker server?

Thanks.

Justin Grewe

[Mariano Peterson]

You shouldn't have to shut down the servers to backup. If the servers are strictly FileMaker Servers, you can perform scheduled backups using FileMaker Server's backup scheduler. You can then write Windows scripts that are triggered by a scheduled task from another server (so as not to slow down the FileMaker Server) which zip and copy the backup files to a file server or tape drive, etc. Using this approach, you would not have to take the FileMaker servers down. As an aside, I've noticed that files which tend to get frequently opened and closed on the server tend to get corrupted. This could certainly be a coincidence, but I wouldn't take any chances.

Aside from this approach, I think the problem you are experiencing is that the FileMaker web machines are loosing their connection to the FileMaker Servers and probably displaying a dialog box such as "Communication with the host could not be re-established...". You could add a local FileMaker database file to the web machine, which is linked to a scheduled task that opens that database just before the servers go down. That local file would have a startup script which would just quit the FileMaker application. Then you'd have a second scheduled task set to run after the server backup is supposed to be complete, which would open the opener file. Re-opening the file once the server is back online should alleviate the problem you're experiencing.