Stealing my information back

Question

TL;DR: My POS uses Sybase Advantage Database Server to store my sales data, and I'd like to access it, but I only have the backup files.

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I own a small business with "advanced" POS software, which has the only copy of all my sales data ever. They have some backup scheme, but they're unwilling to divulge any details. There's also an automatic daily local backup routine, but because this is a POS and there are certain laws about deleting data, I am not allowed (nor do I have the software required) to restore from backup even to check that it works. I asked the support guy when the last time he had to restore from backup was, and he said "don't worry, we don't ever need it".

Naturally, I'm worried.

I'll note at this point that I am required by law to keep this data, and should I fail to do so for any reason I may personally face massive fines in the range of multiple millions. I'd like to avoid that.

Additionally to keeping the data, and verifying that the backups contain the data I so need to keep, I'd also like to create reports. The POS vendor claims that it can create any report I'd ever need, but every single time I've asked them about a report it either contained wrong data, crashed, exported unreadable files (to which their reply was that the files are fine, my [insert relevant file reader] is broken), or simply didn't exist (to which their reply is usually something like "you don't need that report anyway"). I asked about accessing a copy of the database myself, and they said they can't allow that. My only recourse is to pay them tens of thousands for developing and testing the report. What report do I want, you ask?

SELECT * FROM SALES

To create this simple report, I need to migrate my data from the Sybase Advantage Database Server backup files into a format I can use, e.g. a MySQL database, but all the migration tools I've found require access to a working database server.

How can I get my data out of these backups?

Answer 1

It's actually a complete Sybase iAnywhere database (which uses .db for the data and .log for the transaction log).

So you should be looking for Sybase iAnywhere or Sybase SQLAnywhere drivers and tools.

SAP / Sybase has a developer website here: http://scn.sap.com/community/sql-anywhere