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Re: Comments on RMAN

From: <Cherie_Machler_at_gelco.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 06:10:09 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.003D05C2.20011129055019@fatcity.com>

Belinda,

We are using RMAN in conjunction with Netbackup, Veritas on Sun Solaris 2.6 and Oracle 8.0.4, 8.1.5, and 8.1.7.x databases.

RMAN is a bit of work to set up. The lower-level RMAN commands are a bit cryptic and take some getting used to. However, once you get your scripts set up and working, you can copy them around everywhere.

The hardest part for us was resolving intermittent problems with the Netbackup interface to the tape drive. Oracle support kept saying things were Veritas problems and Veritas support was uneven depending on who you talked to. We had to upgrade our Netbackup software and patch it a good bit before it worked reliably.

It took weeks to get the kinks worked out. Once we did however, it's been very slick. Extremely automated and fairly easy to use. It's been very reliable once we got the tape drive and tapes all sorted out. We've done several successful recoveries and have been quite happy with how they went. The recoveries were fairly automated with not many opportunities for human error.

One piece of advice I would give would be to start with backups to disk and get all of that working and then add the tape unit if you want it. As I said, a lot of our initial, difficult problems were with the tape unit and the interface to it.

If you can send someone to backup and recovery class, do that. If not, read the RMAN manuals cover to cover and definitely purchase Oracle Backup and Recovery Handbook by Velpuri and Adkoli. They cover the specifics for lots of scenarios and the bare bones to start building your scripts.

It's hard to just give someone backup scripts to start with because they need to be so heavily customized to reflect your environment.

Also, give some thought to your backup schedule and what sort of windows you have to do backups. We started with weekly full, cumulative backups and backing up our archive logs to tape daily before removal and then added incrementals on some intervening days later. It can be an iterative approach.

In closing, I'd say that any medium to large shop with mission-critical databases needs a robust hot backup solution like RMAN. You're going to have to invest the time and effort to get it up and going if you want serious recoverability capability.

Cherie Machler
Oracle DBA
Gelco Information Network

                                                                                       
                         
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What is the general consensus from the list on using RMAN? Pros? Cons? Any previous experience with problems as a result of using RMAN versus cold and hot backups. I would appreciate your inputs. Thanks in advance.

Belinda K. Taylor
Database Analyst, Database Support
Database Application Services, Technology Systems Division Information Technology Unit
George Mason University
Office: (703) 993-3346
Fax: (703) 993-3403

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Received on Thu Nov 29 2001 - 08:10:09 CST

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