Re: archives

The rule is:

You keep all archives since the time of the last backup (or, rather more correctly, since the time the last backup cycle started).

Anything before that can be deleted.

Provided you are certifiably insane and don't mind plugging yourself into the wall occasionally for reminders on EST.

Look: the archives are the ONLY thing standing between you and data loss. Lose your archives, and if anything goes wrong with your database, you *WILL* lose data.

What does that suggest? That you backup like mad, and *you treat archives with a fair degree of paranoia*. (And you might reasonably ask at this point why Oracle felt it necessary to introduce 5-way archiving in 8i).

What's the worst we're talking about: the odd extra DLT tape? The odd extra 20Gb hard drive??

The short story is that *if* your backup succeeds, you may delete all prior archives, *provided* that backup is actually functional and complete *and* no-one is stupid enough to damage said backup prior to its being used *and* there's never a requirement to go back to the night-before-last's backup.

Mere mortals tend to think, however, that it's a damned sight easier to keep a week's worth of archives on disk, another week's on tape, and to take a weekly, un-erasable, backup of archives just to be sure. That way, when looney junior drops a backup tape on ther server room floor and watches it smash into a zillion pieces with an odd, awful sinking feeling, all is *not* lost!

Regards (and NOT speaking from any personal experience at all, and I'll sue if it's suggested otherwise)
HJR "Steffen Michel" <steffen_at_michelfhq.de> wrote in message news:95ed92$f2p$01$1_at_news.t-online.com...
> So is it neccessary to keep an archive if there is a newer one?
> When we save the tables every night,do we also have to save the archive
> files or can they be deleted after a successful
> storage?
>
> <jdorlon_at_my-deja.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:95cisd$bsb$1_at_nnrp1.deja.com...
> > They are a record of the changes that users make to a database. If you
> > ever need to do a database recovery, these files along with proper
> > backups of the datafiles which make up your database, will allow you to
> > recover the database to any point in time after your backup. (assuming
> > all of the archive files are there and are intact)
> >
> >
> > Sent via Deja.com
> > http://www.deja.com/
>
>
Received on Fri Feb 02 2001 - 08:02:43 CST