> Apparently firebird
> requires regular Backup and Restores.

frequent backups are good - restores are not required frequently, once or
twice a year is still regular.

> Our customers are mainly computer illiterate
> so we would like to be able to backup and restore
> in such a way,
> as if the cycle fails the backup and restore does not
> make the situation worse by overwriting a half decent GDB
> with a failed backup file.

you should NEVER overwrite a db with a restore. Always restore to secondary
file.

My maintenance amounts to frequent backups and test restores to alternative
named dbs but the once yearly restore to the production environment is
manual in this order:
1. shut down server
2. rename production db to another name
3. start server again (noone can connect)
4. backup it up
5. restore it to the non-production name (noone can connect while you are
restoring)
6. if all successful - stop server again
7. rename to production
8. start server.
You're back in action

grab a copy of this
http://www.is.svitonline.com/ddking/
Alan

>
> Does anyone know of any component that does this?
>
> Regards,
>
> Robert.
>