Re: diff between incremental and archive backups

From: Mladen Gogala <gogala.mladen_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2015 22:27:52 -0500
Message-ID: <5647FBB8.4050604_at_gmail.com>

Huh? This thread is quickly becoming surreal. You say that "backups aren't really for recovery" and that backups are for "unmitigated multi-site corruption"? Well, I wouldn't use that kind of language, but that's just me. Perhaps the fact that I have done a restore and recovery for a client in 2012, after the lady named Sandy has visited the Big Apple, has corrupted my judgement.
My clients also regularly use database backups for cloning production to development and test databases. With a decent infrastructure, you can do that over 1 night, without your glass slippers turning into old sneakers. However, only one backups gets restored - the last full backup. There is usually not enough time to restore incremental backups. However, if all of the backups are full backups, then there is no problem. Also, I don't see how incremental backups would be useful for regulatory storage? SOX, HIPAA and some other laws have created so called "seven year itch" but I really don't see how incremental backups could help with scratching it? On the other hand, a full backup with the accompanying archive logs could be restored for regulators, even after 7 years, should that really be necessary.
Long story short, backups are still useful. However, the old ritual of performing weekly full and daily incremental backups makes no sense any more.

On 11/14/2015 06:15 PM, Neil Chandler wrote:
> Indeed.
>
> This may sound dumb, but backups aren't really for recovery these
> days. Business continuity - 24x7 and all that - means backups are
> generally useless. The are for historic regulatory storage. They are
> for unmitigated multi-site corruption. I haven't restored a backup to
> get a system back up and running - with one weird, unusual but
> appropriate-for-the-business exception where we didn't do regular
> backups - for well over a decade. Maybe even 20 years. The last
> critical DB restore I recall was in 1997 for a large German bank.
>
> Now, you don't restore, you failover. Cluster, data guard, golden gate
> (a bit data-lossy but fine for most).
>
> The thought of having to restore tens of TB from compressed slow Sata
> disk. *Shudder*
>
> Neil Chandler
> Oracle ACE
> sent from my phone
>
> On 14 Nov 2015, at 23:02, Tim Gorman <tim_at_evdbt.com
> <mailto:tim_at_evdbt.com>> wrote:
>
>> Over my past 16 years as a DBA consultant/contractor, incremental
>> backups have been very much in the majority. Some use cumulative
>> incrementals, most use differential incrementals. Many use BCT to
>> make incrementals more efficient. Many also backup DataGuard
>> physical standbys, instead of the primaries, although there are some
>> RMAN bugs involved between 11.1.0.6 and 11.2.0.3.
>>
>> Organizations with strict RTO and RPO objectives use DataGuard,
>> GoldenGate, or other replication options as the primary recovery
>> method, with RMAN restore/recovery as the last resort.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 11/14/15 15:30, Andrew Kerber wrote:
>>> That's about the same as my experience.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>
>>>> On Nov 14, 2015, at 4:13 PM, Neil Chandler
>>>> <neil_chandler_at_hotmail.com <mailto:neil_chandler_at_hotmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I have worked for 5 corporations this year, small and huge. Oracle
>>>> 10, 11 and 12. All of them used incremental backups.
>>>>
>>>> Regards
>>>>
>>>> Neil Chandler
>>>> Oracle ACE
>>>> sent from my phone
>>>>
>>>>>> On 14 Nov 2015, at 17:48, Mladen Gogala <gogala.mladen_at_gmail.com
>>>>>> <mailto:gogala.mladen_at_gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 11/14/2015 08:38 AM, Andrew Kerber wrote:
>>>>>> am not sure where you get the idea that most places don't use
>>>>>> incremental backups. That is the opposite of my experience.
>>>>> From consulting.
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Mladen Gogala
>>>>> Oracle DBA
>>>>> http://mgogala.freehostia.com
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>> --
>>> http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
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>>
>>

-- 
Mladen Gogala
Oracle DBA
http://mgogala.freehostia.com


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Received on Sun Nov 15 2015 - 04:27:52 CET