8 Backing Up and Restoring ECE

This chapter describes the tasks that you perform to back up and restore Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management Elastic Charging Engine (ECE).

About Backing Up and Restoring ECE

After installing or upgrading an ECE system, perform one of the following backups as a safety measure:

Standard configuration backup. See "About Standard Configuration Backup".
Complete system backup. See "About Complete System Backup".

Repeat the backup process whenever you make any changes in the data or configuration files. If you do not back up the ECE system regularly, you need to reinstall and reconfigure ECE if the system is corrupted due to operational or system errors. Reinstalling and reconfiguring eliminates any chance of recovering and reprocessing data processed by the ECE system at the time of the error.

About Standard Configuration Backup

The standard configuration backup is a backup of the ECE configuration files and ECE installation area (the ECE installation directory and its content: ECE_home). You can perform this backup as soon as you install and configure ECE. In particular, make sure you back up all customized files. For example, you need to perform this procedure if you customized any settings in the ECE_home/oceceserver/config/management/charging-settings.xml file.

Repeat the backup process whenever you customize or update ECE configuration files. For instructions on backing up the standard configuration, see "Backing Up Standard Configuration".

When you complete a standard configuration backup, you can use the backup configuration directory and installation area to restore your system when needed. For instructions on restoring the standard configuration, see "Restoring a Standard System Configuration".

Important:

Store this backup in a safe location. The data in these files are necessary if you encounter any operational or system issues.

If you require ECE technical support, email a copy of your backup configuration directory to your Oracle Global Support representative. If you want to send a copy of your configuration directory, use the tar command to create an archived version of that directory.

About Complete System Backup

The complete system backup is a backup of the complete ECE system. You can perform the complete system backup by creating a complete offline backup of the following:

ECE configuration files and ECE installation area. See "Backing Up Standard Configuration".
Oracle NoSQL database configuration and Oracle NoSQL database installation area. See "About Backing Up Oracle NoSQL Installation and Configuration".

Important:

If you have multiple ECE charging server nodes configured in your system, perform the backup on the driver machine. Make sure that you repeat the backup process regularly.

Store this backup in a safe location. The data in these files are necessary if you encounter any operational or system issues.

Typically, ECE files generated at run time (such as Rated Event (RE) Loader files (rated event data), RE loader control files, log files, and Coherence-related files) are automatically recovered when you restore your ECE system. For example, if the RE loader control files are not available in your restored ECE system, Rated Event Formatter automatically generates the RE loader control files based on the event specification data loaded into ECE from PDC. Therefore, you need not create an offline backup of the ECE files generated at run time.

However, if you want to avoid the risk of losing any data, you can create a backup of RE loader files. See the discussion about backing up RE Loader files in BRM Configuring Pipeline Rating and Discounting.

For instructions on restoring your complete ECE system backup, see "Restoring a Complete System Backup".

About Backing Up Oracle NoSQL Installation and Configuration

ECE uses Oracle NoSQL Database to temporarily store rated event information. Specifically, ECE uses the multiple-node Oracle NoSQL data store configuration in production environment for storing the ECE data. Make sure you create a backup of Oracle NoSQL installation area (the Oracle NoSQL installation directory and its content) and the multiple-node Oracle NoSQL data store configuration. You can perform this backup as soon as you install and configure the Oracle NoSQL database. Repeat the backup process whenever you customize or update the Oracle NoSQL data store configuration.

For instructions on backing up the Oracle NoSQL Database installation, see "Backing Up the Oracle NoSQL Database Installation".

You can also make a complete offline backup of Oracle NoSQL Database using the appropriate backup tools for your database version and ensure that the backup is completely valid and usable. The backup must contain both the database definition and all the database contents. See the Oracle NoSQL Database documentation for more information on performing full database backups.

You can make a complete offline backup of the multiple-node Oracle NoSQL data store configuration by taking snapshots of the nodes. See the discussion about backing up the Oracle NoSQL data store in the Oracle NoSQL database documentation for instructions on backing up an Oracle NoSQL Database data store.

Backing Up Standard Configuration

To back up standard configuration:

On the driver machine, go to the ECE_home directory.
Copy the content of the ECE_home directory to a new directory:
```
cp -R ECE_home NewName
```
where NewName is the name for the new directory.

Note:
You can remove the ECE log files and Coherence-related files from the backup directory.
Create an archive of the entire directory:
```
tar cvf NewName.tar.gz NewName
```
Store the backup copy in a location outside of the ECE system:
```
mv NewName.tar.gz New_Directory
```
where New_Directory is the new location that is outside of the ECE system.

A compressed TAR file, of all copied files, is created with the extension tar in the new location specified (for example, ece_backup/ece_home.tar.gz).

Backing Up the Oracle NoSQL Database Installation

To back up a Oracle NoSQL database installation:

On the machine in which the Oracle NoSQL database is installed, go to the Oracle_NoSQL_DB_Home directory.
Copy the content of the Oracle_NoSQL_DB_Home directory to a new directory:
```
cp -R Oracle_NoSQL_DB_Home NewName
```
where NewName is the name for the new directory.
Create an archive of the entire directory:
```
tar cvf NewName.tar.gz NewName
```
Store the backup copy in a location outside of the ECE system:
```
mv NewName.tar.gz New_Directory
```
where New_Directory is the new location that is outside of the ECE system.

A compressed TAR file, of all copied files, is created with the extension tar in the new location specified (for example, Oracle_noSQL_db_backup/noSQL_db_bkp.tar.gz).

Restoring a Standard System Configuration

This section outlines how to restore an ECE system backup.

To restore an ECE system backup:

In PDC, publish all the PDC pricing data (the metadata, setup, pricing, and profile data) from the PDC database to ECE by running the following command:
```
ImportExportPricing -publish -metadata -config -pricing -profile -target [ece] 
```
Delete or rename the damaged ECE_home directory:
- To delete, run the following command:
```
rm -R ECE_home
```
- To rename, run the following command:
```
mv ECE_home New_Name
```
Retrieve the backup tar file of the ECE_home directory.
Extract from the tar file the backup copy of the directory:
```
tar xvf ECE_home.tar.gz
```
The command recreates the copy of the ECE_home directory.
On the driver machine, go to the ECE_home/bin directory.
Start ECC:
```
./ecc
```
Enable real-time synchronization of BRM and ECE customer data updates. See the discussion about configuring ECE for synchronizing BRM and ECE customer data in real time in BRM Elastic Charging Engine Implementation Guide for more information.
Start ECE processes and gateways in the following order:

Important:
Depending on your installation, you can start Diameter Gateway, RADIUS Gateway, both Diameter Gateway and RADIUS Gateway, or none.
```
start server
start configLoader
start pricingUpdater
start customerUpdater
start emGateway
start brmGateway
start ratedEventFormatter
start diameterGateway
start radiusGateway
```
All data is now back in the ECE data grid.

Real-time-data updates, which had been temporarily disrupted due to the shutdown, are processed upon restart.

Restoring a Complete System Backup

To restore a complete ECE system backup:

In PDC, publish all the PDC pricing data (the metadata, setup, pricing, and profile data) from the PDC database to ECE by running the following command:
```
ImportExportPricing -publish -metadata -config -pricing -profile -target [ece] 
```
Delete or rename all the damaged directories; for example, ECE_home and Oracle_NoSQL_DB_Home:
- To delete, run the following command:
```
rm -R Directory_Name
```
- To rename, run the following command:
```
mv Directory_Name New_Name
```
Retrieve all the backup tar files. For example, ece_home.tar.gz and noSQL_db_bkp.tar.gz.
Extract from the tar files the backup copy of the directories:
```
tar xvf Directory_Name.tar.gz
```
The command recreates the directories in your restored installation directory.
Repeat steps 2 to 4 to restore all the damaged directories.
On the driver machine, go to the ECE_home/bin directory.
Start ECC:
```
./ecc
```
Enable real-time synchronization of BRM and ECE customer data updates. See the discussion about configuring ECE for synchronizing BRM and ECE customer data in real time in BRM Elastic Charging Engine Implementation Guide for more information.
Start ECE processes and gateways in the following order:

Important:
Depending on your installation, you can start Diameter Gateway, RADIUS Gateway, both Diameter Gateway and RADIUS Gateway, or none.
```
start server
start configLoader
start pricingUpdater
start customerUpdater
start emGateway
start brmGateway
start ratedEventFormatter
start diameterGateway
start radiusGateway
```
All data is now back in the ECE data grid.

Real-time-data updates, which had been temporarily disrupted due to the shutdown, are processed upon restart.