Re: backup without archivelog mode

"Howard J. Rogers" wrote:
>
> Let's not.
>
> You can carry on what-iffing and making exceptions here, there and
> everywhere. It really is very tedious.

Look, Howard, we're having a technical discussion here. It's a 2-way street. There's no need for the personal commentary. If you find our discussion tedious, then stop posting.

> If you can't see the difference
> between having to type
> insert into emp(7274,'Smith','Clerk',7382,1700.95,120.75,10)
>
> ...where you have to resupply every piece of information, and
> having to type
>
> create index blah on emp(ename);
>
> ...where the source data for the index is readily available without
> user specification, then I'm not pursuing the subject with you,
> because you are just being awkward.

Of course I see the difference. Do you? It's apples and oranges - DML vs. DDL. Of course they are different. If you wanted to show a legitmate apples to apples comparison that pertains to our discussion, you'd need to compare your insert example to the equivalent direct load (nologging) insert. Both could be scripted, drawing data from another source, and both could be fat-fingered (requiring the need to re-key the data).

Or compare 2 identical SQL*Loader jobs - one logged, the other direct. Both are "recoverable" under your definition by simply re-running them. But they are very different in the eyes of Oracle's recovery mechanism.

> Yes, anyone can keep a record on a piece of paper about the insert
> into EMP. So yes, it's not just in their head. But do they have
> to re-key the data? Yes. Does anyone have to re-key the data
> inserted by SQL Loader? Or by an index creation? No. So there
> you go, yet again, seizing on a specific set of words and totally
> missing the actual point being made.

I'm not missing your point, I just don't agree with it. Again, the source of the data has nothing to do with it's recoverability at an Oracle level. Oracle can recover it only if it was logged to the redo stream (or if you take a backup of the affected datafiles after the nologging transaction). Could you recover it by other means? Maybe, maybe not, but the answer is irrelevant to my point.

> In case anyone missed it, the original point was that archivelog
> guarantees recoverability of transactions, not mandates a
> particular backup strategy.

But what you originally *wrote* (and then tried to defend with a definition of "recoverable" that didn't pertain to Oracle) was that "Archivelog mode simply means that you can guarantee recoverability of *all* transactions" [my emphasis added]. That statement is false as it does not account for nologging transactions, which could have been very misleading to the person to whom you were giving advice. My point was simple - you needed to be more careful with your wording.

Regards,
Sean Received on Sun Mar 24 2002 - 11:53:29 CST