Re: Backup & Recovery Procedures

Backup. Well.

Then, create a copy of your databases :-) and simulate disaster.

What can you lose?

• data, possibly by user misbehaviour (!)
• datafiles in non-system tablespace
• datafiles in the SYSTEM tablespace w/ data dictionary and things
• control file
• log file (you DO write logs to at least 2 different disks, dont't you?)
• archived log file(s), more or less recent
• init.ora's, scripts used to do this and that including the backup
• whole database ("rm -rf /")
• whole disk (hw faliure) (you DO have at least 2 control files..)
• whole machine (fire, flood, thieves, whatever).
• install media (Oracle CD, op.system CD and such)
• more or less recent backups themselves (!!), lost or corrupted
• the BCP itself :->

Think this is all of 'em. PUT DOWN what to do in which case. Try and go through all so that when it comes to real disaster time and the whole management is banging your head you don't have to think much but do things as written.

UPDATE the BCP regularly as your system changes.

Another two questions are:

• should you be able to restore a full-working 1-year-old backup of the DB or yesterday's backup will be enough?
• how much TIME is allowed to be spent on recovery (eg in case of a disk faliure) ? Ten minutes, ten hours or ten days? Use a watch when testing your BCP.

I'm preparing this plan right now for my new employer:) and would be glad if the more experienced out there in this newsgroup commented the above.

Regards
raas

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