Journaling can help you with recovery if you use the save-while-active function in your backup strategy. If you plan to save an application without ending it for checkpoint processing, consider journaling all of the objects associated with the application. After the save operation is complete, save all of the journal receivers for the objects you are saving.
If you need to perform recovery, you can restore objects from the save-while-active media. Then you can apply journal changes to an application boundary.
You also can use the save-while-active function to save an object with partial transactions--before the transactions reach a commit boundary. When you restore an object with partial transactions, you cannot use it without additional actions. Journaling enables you to apply or remove changes to an object with partial transactions to restore it to a usable state.
Using the save-while-active function to save your journaled objects can help you recover your objects more quickly when you need to apply or remove journaled changes specifying FROMENT(*LASTSAVE) or FROMENTLRG(*LASTSAVE). When you use the save-while-active function to save your journaled objects, the system saves and then restores information that indicates which starting journal sequence number is needed for the apply or remove operation. When this information is available for all objects to which you are applying or removing journaled changes, the system does not need to scan the journal receivers to determine this starting point. Scanning journal receiver data to find the starting points can be time consuming.
Also, using the save-while-active function when saving your objects allows you to restore a version of your object which was not from the last save and to still specify FROMENT(*LASTSAVE) or FROMENTLRG(*LASTSAVE) on the apply or remove command and successfully apply or remove changes.
See the Save your server while it is active link below for more information about the save-while-active function. See the Example: Recover objects with partial transactions link for information about restoring objects with partial transactions to a usable state. The Commitment control topic link has more detailed information about transactions.