Hot backups vs RMAN, the rebuttal

Hi All,

        I followed the recent RMAN discussion with some amusement. I get alot of my work rescuing sites that are using RMAN yet do not understand it. RF, your book is invaluable for this, thank you.

First:

	no matter what method you use to backup 
	TEST YOUR RECOVERY method.

We don't need no stinking backups, we need recoveries :-)

When to use RMAN:

	Your database is so big you cannot meet your 
	backup window. 
	Your database is so busy the system cannot 
	handle the redo log generation

Other than that, why do you need the complexities? Why do you accept the additional dependencies? Why do you accept the uncertainties?

Steve, I hate to say it but backup and recovery is and should be boring!

Rebuttals to other reasons:

>From TG: RMAN checks for corruption in archivelogs

	By the time I am writing archive logs to tape 
	it is too late. The instance could be in trouble already.
	Archive log multiplexing (since 8.??) is the only guard
	against this. 


>From RF: What if you don't understand the script?

	So the poor DBA has to read some man pages?

At http://www.1001111.com I have posted a simple shell (bourne) script with environment file that does dynamic hot backups to disk and has been tested on Oracle versions 6 through 9 and on Solaris, Linux, AIX, SGI and HP. I have heard from another that she had it running under CGWIN on Windoze.

Advantages:

	deploy in 5 minutes
	integration with Veritas, Legato and other backup managers
	is a one line change 
	use of tar, cpio or ufsdump is a one line change
	use of bzip, compress, gzip is a one line change
	it's simple, reliable and works just about anywhere
	backs up up all init.ora files, all network.ora files
	creates and backs up a ASCII control file
	backs up all binary control files
	cloning from the backup is trivial	
	easily modifiable
	
Disadvantages
	raw tape handling has been removed as most of the
	complexity in tape backups for Oracle is dealing with
	the tape drive.  
	you should understand the script before you run it
	but then you should understand RMAN before you use it too

Along the backup script I have posted two monitoring/tuning scripts. As a contractor I often cannot install anything in the SYS schema. This scripts create no objects in the database at all. Everything is done with inline views and anonymous PL/SQL blocks.

I will be posting scripts in the future. The majority will be in bourne shell (run anywhere is important) and will deal with fulfilling Oracle's needs in the OS. I have no desire to duplicate what is already on the web but I have noticed there is a shortage of OS level maintenace scripts.

vi and sqlplus are my tools, until ......

4 AM MST, it's London Calling (apologies to the Clash) Dave our db server crashed it's available again but we have a corrupted /usr/bin, a couple other minor file systems are missing and Oracle is complaining about a control file missing

Easy, one line change in init.ora
with what? /usr/bin/vi :-)

My first experience with ed.....
I tolerated vi before, I love it now :-)

-- 
Dave Morgan
Operations Manager, Rigskills Canada
Canada's Geographical Oilfield Services Locator
http://www.rigskills.ca
dvmrgn_at_rigskills.ca
403 399 2442
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Dave Morgan
  INET: dvmrgn_at_1001111.com

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