RE: Restoring with RMAN in nocatalog mode: spfile needed?

From: Bort, Guillermo <guillermo.bort_at_eds.com>
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 09:33:09 -0500
Message-ID: <785A4E1EF4D9E745BAC909B7941BEC0094F591@usplm201.amer.corp.eds.com>


No, it is not necessary. Mind you that if you were to need to perform a full restore in a new server, having a backup of the spfile would be useful, however having it as a pfile is more than enough. Being in NOCATALOG, the only repository for the backup would be the CONTROLFILEs, meaning you should probably configure RMAN to take automatic backup (CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP ON). Perhaps the tech people from commvault are mistaken, or perhaps commvault has something special in the SPFILE, but I highly doubt the latter.  

One thing to note is that if you configure controlfile autobackup, every rman backup automatically backs up the controlfile as well as the spfile if it's in use, this is the behaviour of RMAN CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP... and the spfile is usually <100K, so it does no harm to back it up.  

HTH   Guillermo Alan Bort

EDS - ITO DBA Main Group    

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of David Pintor Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 10:55 AM
To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: Restoring with RMAN in nocatalog mode: spfile needed?  

Hi list,

  • Oracle 9.2.0.8
  • Solaris 8
  • Commvault 7.0

I have an Oracle database being backed up through an external application (Commvault). This application uses an RMAN script to back up the database to tape.
Commvault is also backing up some filesystems from the server, and ORACLE_HOME is included.

One of the guys from the Commvault support has advised us to include the spfile in our RMAN backup, claiming that as we're in nocatalog mode, the spfile is absolutely needed if we want to restore the database.

I create a pfile from spfile every night and keep it in some directory in my ORACLE_HOME, so it's already backed up during the filesystem backup.

My question is, do I really need to include the spfile in the RMAN backup or can I just restore normally and recreate it later from my last pfile?

Thanks a lot.

David

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Received on Mon Oct 06 2008 - 09:33:09 CDT

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