Is it possible to do SVN Backup using Backup tools since use SVN dump

Hi Bob

We are using FSFS

We have many repositories, the most of them are small (100M or less) and there some of them (5 or 6 repositories) with about 2G each one.

We do not use externals.

We have hooks, but they are centralized and each repository has hyperlink to this central place.

We have use dependencies with Jira tools and also some customizations with hooks . 

Thanks for your link as suggestion to read.

In fact, we do not test yet to do restore from our backups, but I've already done a copy from one server to another one just doing a tar.gz from a repos and copy it to another one and everything run ok. Because of this, I dont understand why could be better to make backups using svnadmin tools since just filesystem systems backups. 

As I just see in http://svnbook.red-bean.com/ how to do backups using svnadmin, but I would like to understand why do not use a simple backup tool to do this.

For example, when we talk about oracle database, we know that filesystem backup just work  if we stop our database and after start backup from filesystem, otherwise the datafiles would be inconsistents and we could not restore database using them. 

But with SVN I dont find any place to inform if there's some problems using just filsystem backups.

We did not choose svnadmin dump to do backup just because we will have to create scripts to do this and as we have a system backup for all  of our machines, we just keep this system. But if someone explains problems with this way to do backup, we have to change to use the correct way.

Thanks a lot

Marcia

Hello Bob

I've tried to answer you using google crhome and my answer was not load to here, although I've received email that I have answer:)

Now I try using Explorer and the answer has appeared.

So, lets go to answer you:

We use FSFS and the most of our repositories has about 200MB and there are some (4) with 2GB each one.

We do not use externals.

We have hooks scripts, but they are centralized in unique path, and aach repository has hiperlink to them.

These hooks scripts do validation with Jira tool and also do inserts in oracle database for customize some features.

We do not test yet our backups, but once I copy a repository to another server and i just do a tar.gz from the repository and uncompress it in anohter server and works well.

So I dont know if my approach to do backup (using backups tools from filesystem) is bad or not, because the SVN documentation does not talk about this, just talk about svnadmin dump. But I would like understand if there's some reason to do not do like Im doing.

Example: Backups for Oracle datafiles just works if we stop database (or if we configure it to make backup online, with rman). If I do not stop database, the datafiles will be inconsistents and we could not restore the db with them.

But at SVN, I dont know if we have some type of problems doing different from svnadmin dump.

We do not use svnadmin dump, just because we should create scripts to do dump, it is easy, but I thought that was not needed, since we have our Backup System already configured for all of our machines.

What is your opinion?

Best regards

MArcia