RE: hanging shutdowns

I think we're all preaching to the choir at this point.....;-) Hot backups: good, cold backups: not really necessary.

I think the problem is the legal department at Robyn's company, and whether fighting that battle is a career-limiting move for her. Some battles aren't worth fighting.

If it were me, I'd clearly state my objections to my boss, with clearly thought-out arguments as to why cold backups are an unnecessary waste of time, preferably in an email with a timestamp on it. Then, wait for someone (with clout and political leverage) to complain about the nightly downtime....and then, ahem, re-open the discussion...;-)

--
Mark J. Bobak
Senior Oracle Architect
ProQuest Information & Learning

"Exception:  Some dividends may be reported as qualified dividends but
are not qualified dividends.  These include:

* Dividends you received on any share of stock that you held for less
than 61 days during the 121-day period that began 60 days before the
ex-dividend date.  The ex-dividend date is the first date following the
declaration of a dividend on which the purchaser of a stock is not
entitled to receive the next dividend payment. When counting the number
of days you held the stock, include the day you disposed of the stock
but not the day you acquired it. See the examples below. Also, when
counting the number of days you held the stock, you cannot count certain
days during which your risk of loss was diminished.  See Pub. 550 for
more details."
  --IRS, Form 1040-A Instruction Booklet, Line 9b:  Qualified Dividends

-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Powell, Mark D
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 10:20 AM
To: Oracle-L_at_Freelists
Subject: RE: hanging shutdowns

>> None of us doubt that the hot backups are adequate for recovery. <<

From multiple personal experiences with a live production system manual
hot backups work!  I have never had to recover a live production
database using rman.  That I have only done in practice, but I believe
Oracle and others that the tool does in fact work.

There is nothing wrong with cold backups.  A cold backup provides a
consistent point in time recovery from which a forward recovery can be
done, but unlike with a hot backup does not have to be done.  This makes
cold backups (or a copy) excellent for sending offsite to a disaster
recovery site.  No archive logs have to be sent with it.  But cold
backups require a window.  When the database is large enough that just
copying all the files takes several hours the time usually does not
exist to perform a cold backup.  So hot backups were made available to
eliminate the need to stop the database while the backup is made.

I think someone needs to question the reasoning behind legal's opinion.

HTH -- Mark D Powell --


-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Robyn
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 9:58 AM
To: m.haddon_at_comcast.net
Cc: Oracle-L_at_Freelists
Subject: Re: hanging shutdowns

Micheal,

I understand your position and when I arrived here, I made all the same
arguments.  I've been told that our legal department insists on a cold
backup, and the requirement is non-negotiable.  We run full test
recoveries on all our major systems on a regular basis and we use the
hot backups to do so.  None of us doubt that the hot backups are
adequate for recovery.

So I guess we're not really 24x7, we're 24x7-15 and that 15 minutes is a
sacred cow that I need to leave alone right now ...

Thanks for the input and if I was calling the shots,  I wouldn't do it
this way.  However, I would still need a script that would shut the
database down quickly, possibly for maintenance or hardware issues, so I
really appreciate the suggestions provided on this thread.

Robyn

On 2/27/06, Michael Haddon <m.haddon_at_comcast.net> wrote:


>  I definitely agree, the shutdown is not the problem, it is doing what


> it is supposed to do in order to maintain data integrity and preserve 
> transactions. The real questions is 'why do you shutdown at all??', I 
> haven't been forced to perform a cold backup on a schedule in years. I

> thought 7X24 really meant 7X24. If the production environment can deal

> with the downtime necessary to perform cold backups, then couldn't 
> that time be used to perform batch transactions or some other
necessary task.
>


>  I would recommend spending some time on hot backups and showing your 

> boss that the software is a little smarter these days and a complete, 
> point in time/ or some other time recovery is easy. Take a few 
> days/weeks and show him that you can give him an exact copy of his 
> production system anytime he wants it. Make him comfortable and your 
> cold backups will be a thing of the past, otherwise, get another boss!
>


>  Just my .02

>


>  Mike

>
--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l


--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l


--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l