Backup the Project Workspace VFS within the Infor CRM SLX Database

In Infor CRM SLX, the files used to create the client site published on the web server are stored in the Project Workspace. While it is possible to set Infor CRM SLX to store these files on the local server, the default location is to store them in the Virtual File System, or VFS. The VFS resides in the same database that stores all the rest of the CRM data. In versions prior to Infor CRM SLX 8.5.1, it was possible to use the Project Workspace Manager feature in Application Architect to backup the files in the VFS, but that not possible is newer versions.

For Infor CRM SLX versions 8.5.1 and later, you must actually go into SQL itself to back up the VFS. The entirety of the VFS is contained in two tables, sysdba.VIRTUALFILESYSTEM and sysdba.VFSDATA. If you just need a temporary backup, for example if you are testing some customization you might need to revert, you can create the backup by using SQL Management Studio to run the following SQL queries:

select * into sysdba.VIRTUALFILESYSTEM_BAK from sysdba.VIRTUALFILESYSTEM

select * into sysdba.VFSDATA_BAK from sysdba.VFSDATA

This will create new tables in the CRM database named VIRTUALFILESYSTEM_BAK and VFSDATA_BAK. (You can name the table something else if desired.) These tables do nothing within Infor CRM SLX, they will just sit in the database until you use them to restore the actual VIRTUALFILESYSTEM and VFSDATA tables, or delete them.

If you should need to to use these temporary tables to restore the previous version of the VFS, the best procedure would be to delete the contents of the original tables (but not the tables themselves) and copy all the backed up data back into those tables. That can be done using the following SQL statements.

delete from sysdba.VIRTUALFILESYSTEM

insert into sysdba.VIRTUALFILESYSTEM select * from sysdba.VIRTUALFILESYSTEM_BAK

delete from sysdba.VFSDATA

insert into sysdba.VFSDATA select * from sysdba.VFSDATA_BAK

If you are using the technique to back up and possibly restore the Project Workspace VFS, I would suggest freely making use of

select * from sysdba.VIRTUALFILESYSTEM     (or whatever table you need)

to keep track of where you are in the process. Deleting the wrong thing at the wrong time can leave you needing to restore the entire database from backup. (Any time you are using queries to write to the database, I would suggest you have the database backed up somewhere.  You should always have important databases backed up, but you definitely want to be prepared to make a quick recovery in case you mistype a query in a way that deletes or overwrites needed data.)