On 2/29/12 2:50 PM, todderamaa wrote:

> Maybe with the possibility of corruption, I should tell him to exclude
> the database files from backup entirely and only backup the gbk files
> that are created in the evening.

This is the usual way to backup Firebird databases in situations like
your clients have. Operating on the live database files is a quick way
to corrupted backup copies. If you have not experienced corruption
either you have been lucky or have not actually tried restoring from
many of those backup copies.

The client network admins should be aware of this special case when
databases are being used. For this reason some database vendors have an
API that backup software can use to ensure the database activity does
not interfere with the backup operation. The vendors of backup systems
usually charge extra for these modules that handle various databases.
Firebird, however, does not have such an API.

Steps for a safe, reliable Firebird backup:
1) Run GBAK
2) Copy the GBAK output to your backup media
3) Periodically restore from the GBAK output to a test database to
ensure there are no errors.