ASM/RMAN sanity check

From: Maureen English <maureen.english_at_alaska.edu>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:42:39 -0800
Message-ID: <5178981F.8060800_at_alaska.edu>



We are moving databases to a new 11.2.0.3 Linux cluster, using RAC/ASM. The databases will be RAC One Node databases.

In the past, we've always shutdown our databases every week and taken cold backups or snapshots of the database. We're trying to develop a backup strategy for the new server and I'm hoping that I can get some feedback from those with more experience to let me know if I'm on the right track or not.

For our small databases, I'm planning to have the standard DATA and FRA diskgroups. The small databases will share space in these two diskgroups. RMAN backupsets will be created in the FRA diskgroup and then backed up to tape and deleted. This is what I've found to be "Oracle's Best Practice".

For the large databases, we need the ability to do snapshots in addition to hot backups. My plan for these databases is to have DATA and LOG diskgroups for controlfiles, redologs, datafiles and archivelogs for each database. When we need to do a snapshot, we can shutdown the database, snap the 2 diskgroups and bring the database back up. I'm also planning to have an FRA diskgroup that can be used for the RMAN backupsets that can be written to tape and deleted.

Does it make sense to have the 2 diskgroups per database and 1 shared FRA diskgroup for these large databases, or is there some other idea that makes more sense?

One reason for the snapshots is because we will often take multiple snapshots during application upgrades so we have a point to quickly restore to if there's a problem with the upgrade. These need to be done when the database is down, and they need to be done quickly so the upgrade can continue in a timely manner.

We're currently okay on being able to take a snapshot of an ASM diskgroup, but the backing up of it, and the recovering from it, are still in question. The system administrators are working on that....

Any comments/suggestions?

Received on Thu Apr 25 2013 - 04:42:39 CEST

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