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Re: Backup and Recovery and DR - RMAN vs. NOT

From: Mark Brinsmead <pythianbrinsmead_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 21:36:12 -0600
Message-ID: <cf3341710605022036y1932535x84085ebfc0234fbe@mail.gmail.com>


Dennis is certainly correct to point out that a backup scheme -- whatever one you go with -- should be requirements-driven.

That said, it is very important to ensure that your decisions are being driven by the right requirements.

Now, I have no knowledge whatsoever of your requirements-setting process, but the little that I have seen here shows a great deal of consideration for backup requirements, and relatively little for recovery requirements. Let's get one thing straight right from the start: this process is about recovery, not backup, although there are requirements specific to each that you need to consider.

Split-mirror backups are pretty cool. In the early-to-mid '90s (and maybe even the late '90s) this was considered the "Cadillac" solution for database backup. I do hope that you're not doing true "split-mirror" backups these days, though, since almost every storage vendor out there now offers much better methods for doing roughly the same thing. (The terms "BCV", "Snapshot", and "Flashcopy" leap to mind, although each vendor generally coins their own terminology, so the equivalent for you storage platform may be called something slightly different.) But I digress...

The point here is that your focus should not be nearly so much on "backup" as on "recovery". This is especially true in the context of "disaster recovery".

Now, I am not going to try to tell you here what your requirements are -- or even what they should be. There are, however, a few things that your organisation might want to consider (if they have not already).

Now, there are a few backup requirements to consider, too:

Anyway, I've said a lot, but so far nothing specific to the original question of RMAN vs. split mirrors. I don't plan to ignore that question, but the hour is late, and I need to to go work (you know, that place where they *pay* me to answer questions) in the morning. I'll try to offer some more specific comments on this subject tomorrow -- hopefully when I do, it won't look like the time I spent typing this response was wasted...

--
Cheers,
-- Mark Brinsmead
   Staff DBA,
   The Pythian Group
   http://www.pythian.com/blogs

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http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
Received on Tue May 02 2006 - 22:36:12 CDT

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