RE: Using RMAN

Sona,

I am using Rman to backup directly (via EDM software) to a tape. It is working very nicely. Recovery has not been an issue (haven't had to recover yet), but we perform weekly Rman Validate Recovery to be sure that we can read the tape.

The reason to use tape backup is that I don't need to get into the dance that you need to do when performing disk backup (deleting aged backup files, keeping last few days etc). I know this can easily be done with simple unix/nt scripting, but Edm is working nicely for us, and I don't feel the need to change.

As for your plan of keeping only 3 days of backup on disk, I would change it to 5 days if you are doing a full, followed by two incremental backups. Why cut the time so close? If disk space is an issue, compress the backup file after the Rman backup has completed (be sure and test Validate Backup from the Uncompressed file to make sure all is well). Either that, or buy more disk - it is cheap now-a-days.

As for what is faster - tape or disk - it all depends on what kind of tape drive you use. Intuitively, I would say disk is faster. But then, tape is safer - pretty easy to delete a disk file - not as easy to delete a tape file. I currently backup a 10 gig database in about 20 minutes on NT, using StorageTek tape library.

Hope this helps.

Tom Mercadante
Oracle Certified Professional

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 12:46 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

See currently we are using Unix scripts to do our hot backups .We take the backup on disk and everynight after the disk backup we copy the backup on tape using Veritas Net Backup.
Presently we keep 2 days worth of backups on the disk and 3 days of archive logs.That means at any point in time i have the last 2 days backup on disk (just for fatster recovery so that we can aviod going to tapes in case of a failure).
Now if we start using RMAN ,we would be taking hot backups (mostly using increamental strategy) using RMAN.So for e.g. we start on say sunday taking an incremental level 0 backup on disk.RMAN only remmbers the disk backup ...right???? Note that we will also be copying the backups on tape but that will be independent of RMAN since it is not done using RMAN. Say the next 3 days of the week ,we do increamental level 1 backups .On the 3 rd day (i.e. Wednesday) i would have only Monday's and Tuesdays' backup on disk (which are the inceemental llevel 1 backups since the whole ideas is to keep last 2 days backup om disk).
So if we have a failure on Wednesday then RMAN would look for the incremental level 0 backup of Sunday on the disk but that backup is not present on the disk now.
I hope i have cleared it up enough.
Now my question is can we maintain the same policy of keeping 2 days backup on disk by using RMAN.
What kind of backup strategies do RMAN users follow? Are RMAN backups usually taken on tape directly ? Is it faster to take backups on tape rather on disk while using RMAN?

Could RMAN users share their backup/recovery strategies ,please.

TIA

• Original Message ----- To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 5:55 AM

> If you are using a recovery catalog then rman keeps track of everything
> there. He knows if you've been naughty, he know if you've been nice, he
> knows....OOOPS I got carried away. But when you do a restore using rman
he
> will tell you what backup sets you will need.
>
> Ruth
> ----- Original Message -----
> To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 6:20 PM
>
>
> Hi
> Currently we are using Unix scripts to do backups.We keep last 2 days of
> backups on the disk and also take the backups on tape daily.
> We are planning to use RMAN for backups and would like to maintain the the
> same policy of 2 days backup on disk and daily tape backups.
> Is it possible to implement this using RMAN? Which backup will RMAN
remember
> (while restore) the disk backup or the tape backup?
> If we try to use the incremental strategy ,then how would RMAN remember
the
> last incremental level 0 backup ? It will not be present on disk since we
> only keep the last 2 days backup on it.
> How do i use RMAN to do restore/recovery in this case?
>
>
> I heard that taking backups on tape is faster than on disk when using
RMAN?
> Is it true?
>
> Could RMAN users share their backup/recovery strategies ,please.
>
> TIA
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> --
> Author: Ruth Gramolini
> INET: rgramolini_at_tax.state.vt.us
>
> Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
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-- 
Author: Sona
  INET: sona_us_at_hotmail.com

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Author: Mercadante, Thomas F
  INET: Thomas.Mercadante_at_Labor.State.Ny.Us

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