Re: Oracle in a HP Storage Area Network

Svend Jensen wrote:
>
> Newer Oracle versions (did you say?) has the ALTER SYSTEM SUSPEND,
> that will suspend all i/o, untill ALTER SYSTEM RESUME.
> This can be used to break mirror systems, using the offline mirror part
> for creating backups. When done, resilver the mirror.

The SUSPEND/RESUME feature is only necessary on certain hardware subsystems that can't deal with the datafiles being updated during while the mirror is being broken. Many modern disk subsystem vendors are tolerant of changes to the datafiles during the mirror-breaking or snapshotting process, in which case the SUSPEND/RESUME is not necessary. Check with your HP vendor to be sure. Frequently all you need to do is place all tablespaces into hotbackup mode, split/snapshot, then take them all out of hotbackup mode (as opposed to placing all tablespaces in hotbackup, SUSPEND, split/snapshot, RESUME, end hotbackup).

> Dooing journalized snapshot backups using storage manager you have to
> have all tablespaces in begin backup, or you have to do the snapshot
> sequentialy on tablespace/datafiles basis with begin/end backup.

Yes, but this is true of any hot, non-RMAN backup.

> I have used the first way and tested a recovery with success, but never
> tried a shapshot way. I'd rather stick with 'old', known ways. There is
> quite a value in keeping the data (consistent).

Mirror-splits and snapshots work just fine for Oracle database backups in my experience with the EMC and NetApp products, respectively.  

Regards,
Sean Received on Fri May 24 2002 - 15:44:43 CDT