We are using BAAN IVc4 with Oracle 9i on Windows 2000.
Sometimes the management requests for allowing Sales data entry in old dates. I have not accepted this request till now. Sometimes ago someone had accepted this request ans the BAAN Server date / time was changed at the os level and a few entries very done in single user mode.

I know that it is not advisable at all but as ours is a non-it company it is very difficult to explain the basic fundamental concepts to non-technical people involved in decision making.

I would like to know that if the date / time is changed at the os level and data entry is done in multiple user mode enverionment what problems could be caused at the BAAN application level and what problems could be caused at the Oracle database level.

What steps could be taken to prevent these problems ?

Hi,

Technicaly speaking yes there could be problem with this sort of scenerio :

One of our customer who was operational on Informix database, use to take full backup weekly, but logical log backup on continous bases ( real time ) .

So they took their first complete backup on 1st july 2006, then they did 'n' no. of transactions till 20th july, and between 1st and 20th july they were taking only logical log backup.

Now on 20th july they changed system date to 15th july. so the logs which database writes based on date/timestamp started from 15th july.

Now db crashed, and when they went to restore the log, it was a big problem, so i believe first thing is that u might have problem restoring db in case u r depending on logical logs.


You can always explain to your user the functional implications also, like all those printout, balances will be disturbed if ur doing back dated transactions.

For eg : on 30th your AR bal. shows 30,000, but since u did backdated entry now it might be 45,000 because u did a transaction of 15,000, then in that case u might have to run some finance sessions to rebuild your balances.
and in worst cum scenerio if you have already closed the period, then situation might be more worse.

Hope it helps you in some way. May be you can read more on internet realted with logical logs and checkpoint concept realted with db.


Regards

Learner