Re: Hot backup [Netware]

On 19 Jul 2000, at 9:15, Ron Rogers scribbled with alacrity and cogency:

Date sent:      	Wed, 19 Jul 2000 09:15:50 -0800
To:             	Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
From:           	"Ron Rogers" <RROGERS_at_galottery.org>
Subject:        	Re: Hot backup

> Are you planning to manually perform your hot backups or use a
> third party vendor software?? If third party, What package? What
> version of Novell are you on?

>information notes;

> ALWAYS have a cold backup periodically (good fallback point).

Ron & Salim,

Yes Yes Yes, and if there is room on the server (database files aren't too big), consider periodically *ALSO* doing a shutdown, then using a compression utility to make "zip" file backup(s) on disk (or CDR?) of the data files.

> You must be in the archivelog mode.

Unless you want to potentially kiss off all changes made since the last cold backup, right?

> do NOT blindly trust third party backup vendors. Establish your
> backup and restore on a non-production server.

That would be standard practice for large installations that need to get as close to "bullet proof" recovery procedure as possible, right?

> Read the install manual and notes more than once.
> Get third party support if you can't get it to work to your satisfaction.
>
> The reason I make these statements is we are on Oracle 7.3.4.0.1,
> Novell 4.11 sp8 ,and Teritas Backup exec with the Oracle agent
> that is suppose to backup according to the Oracle recommendations
> BUT the network people can't get the Oracle agent working and
> opted for an "open file" third party package that swears it will
> backup Oracle open files..Yea Right...

There was a fairly in depth discussion on one of the Netware SysAdmn lists recently about the problems involved in "open file" hot backup of Oracle on Netware. But, I think it was about Netware 5.x and Oracle8 (which comes bundled free with Netware 5).

I can forward that stuff if anyone wants. I think the Netware SysAdmns would like to hear from experienced Netware/Oracle DBAs, especially about both the generic and platform specific complexities involved in doing Oracle hot backup.

It appears that there isn't a whole lot of good documentation.

Since we are still on Netware3 (going to NT, boo hoo), I didn't try to keep the discussion alive on the Netware list, but I would be fascinated to see it continued, and maybe a group could put a FAQ together, or try to get Oracle and Novell to do something. In my opinion, if they are going to use the "free "bundling" of Oracle8 on Netware5 for marketing reasons, or whatever, they ought to be responsible for providing some good documentation of how to make hot backup work. Otherwise there might be quite a few Netware shops where the SysAdmns figure that they can get away with "just" installing Oracle8 (hey, its free, why not?...), and more or less mindlessly using "open file" hot backup solutions without really understanding things from the Oracle side, and then getting into big messes when they actually have to make recovery work right.

> I take a cold backup each weekend (thankfully I do ) because we
> crashed 07/01/2000 while I was on vacation and it cost $4000+ for
> a consultant to tell them to follow the normal restore procedures
> and use the cold backup as a starting point.
...

Yeeee haw!

> Work with your network people and make sure the backup is complete
> and practice the restore procedure.

YES! And Metalink has a Netware forum (hey, don't laugh!).

Also: Salim, you *do* know that 7.3.2 isn't "supported" by Oracle, right?

regards,
ep

>
> >>> sdjaroud_at_lth.sonatrach.dz 07/19/00 10:57AM >>>
>> Oracle DBA under Novell System,
>> I 'm using oracle release 7.3.2 and I want to process a daily hot backup.
>> Is there any problem on doing that (specialy bugs or corruption) ?
Received on Wed Jul 19 2000 - 14:00:58 CDT