All About Dump and Load in Documentum for Docbase Migration

-Dump and load is a feature built into Documentum.
- It allows you to take the entire contents of your docbase, and write them out to a single file. This can be done not only for content, but for users, groups, acls, etc.
-The file that gets written out is in a proprietary format, so the only thing you can do with it is load it into another docbase, thus "dump and load".
-However, this feature is often used for:
• Backing up your docbase (although you will still probably want a more reliable backup process, like a file system backup).
• Moving or copying your docbase to a new machine or environment (ie, creating a test docbase from your production docbase).
• It is also frequently the recommended upgrade path when moving to a new version of Documentum's server product.

- Run dm_clean,dm_logpurge,dm_filescan before dumping a Docbase. This avoids dumping unwanted objects.

- Docbase should be down.

- Should not be used by users.

- All jobs which are active must be inactive.

Dump:
-The most common method for performing this is using Documentum's API interface.
-On the server that Documentum is installed you will find a file called iapi32.exe.
-Look in your Documentum server directory under product\4.x\bin. Run this application from a DOS window.
-It will prompt you for the docbase you wish to connect to, as well as a username and password.
-Connect to the docbase you wish to dump.
-You will soon be at an api command prompt.
-From this prompt, you can issue any of Documentum's api commands.
-In this case we will be issueing the command to create a dump file from the docbase you are currently connected to.
-In most cases, the following set of
commands will dump all of your relevant information out of your docbase.
- It will extract all of your content objects (and their content), as well as your formats and users and any kind of objects with thier data :

create,c,dm_dump_record
set,c,l,file_name
c:\path\fileName.dump
set,c,l,include_content
2=2

append,c,l,type
dm_sysobject
append,c,l,predicate
2=2

append,c,l,type
dm_format
append,c,l,predicate
2=2

append,c,l,type
dm_user
append,c,l,predicate
2=2

append,c,l,type
dm_assembly
append,c,l,predicate
2=2

append,c,l,type
dm_group
append,c,l,predicate
2=2

append,c,l,type
dm_relation
append,c,l,predicate
2=2

append,c,l,type
dm_relation_type
append,c,l,predicate
2=2


append,c,l,type
dmi_queue_item
append,c,l,predicate
2=2


And so on , write the above command for all the object types you want to
export.
#
# NOTE: also dump any user defined non-sysobject types.
#
save,c,l
getmessage,c


-This script dumpts all dm_sysobject objects, dm_format objects, and dm_user etc, objects from you docbase.
-Also the content of these objects will be included.
-You will notice that for each object type we append a predicate of "2=2".
-Since the predicate is required, this is a way of tricking Documentum into exporting all objects.
- You could have used other criteria, such as:
• object_name='xyz'
• folder('/folderName1',descend/)
-Once the dump is complete, you will have a file c:\path\fileName.dump that contains all of your docbase information.
-This file can then be loaded into a new docbase of your choice.

Please feel free to comment. i would like to hear more suggestions,improvements for this