1. Introduction

Complex operations are a set of major tasks, performing critical operations on an abacus server. They may affect the whole set of clients on the same abacus installation.

Note

You need to contact Arcanite’s support to be able to access complex operations at the moment.

Warning

Some tasks are dangerous and may cause data loss. Be careful when using those functions and read specific documentation! When in doubt do not hesitate to contact the support for help.

Warning

Some tasks may take time! Please plan accordingly and avoid starting tasks at the last moment.

Note

Complex operations have been carefully tested, but they have not been tested in production for an extended period of time. It is thus advisable to confirm with our support first that a technician is available when you plan to use them, in order to ensure a rapid response in case of failures.

Only one complex operation can be run at a time on a server, because they usually perform critical tasks on the server. If an operation fails, the system will go in a blocked state in order to avoid any further operation that may damage the server. Arcanite will have to check what happened and confirm that it is safe to resume complex operations on a server.

Complex operations are applied in steps. They may be formed of one or multiple steps (coresponding to individual tasks), executed in sequence.

A complex operation running with 4 steps, the last one being in progress.

You can display individual steps status by clicking on them. Additionnal information and/or a status message about the step in exectuion may be available (depending on the task).

Details about the step 2 of a restore operation. The step is done, and the last message from the system informed the user about the succesful stop of the abacus services.

Complex operations cannot be stopped, they need to be executed completely. They will also prevent any execution of other tasks (like a service restart).

Warning

You should not try to run other tasks when you plan to execute a complex operation. If something fails, your task may be run after the complex operation with potential catastrophic consequences. Ensure your task was executed sucessfully before starting other operations on a server.

Note

When complex operations are running, the system will disable all other operations, including configuration fixes and nightly backups of a server. If an upgrade is done during the night, you will not have the coresponding nightly backup.

Indeed, we cannot ensure that Abacus is running in order to create ASR dumps, nor have we the right to start it back (the install script may be doing something else), so we cannot do those in parallel.