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RMAN Incomplete Recovery question

From: Ravi <ravisista_at_hotmail.com>
Date: 12 Dec 2003 09:26:08 -0800
Message-ID: <2724afff.0312120926.54e9bb80@posting.google.com>


Oracle 8.1.7.4.0 64bit + Sun Solaris 2.8 (Both target and Recovery catalog databases/servers)

I was reading the RMAN documentation and got a question regarding Incomplete Recovery with a Recovery catalog. As per the example scenario (steps 2 & 3) at
<http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/A87860_01/doc/server.817/a76990/rmanreco.htm#437072> , and I quote

"2.If the database is open, shut it down and then mount it:

      shutdown immediate;
      startup mount;

3.Determine which time you want to recover to. For example, if you discover at 9:15 a.m. that a user accidentally dropped a tablespace at 9:02 a.m., then you can recover to 9 a.m.--just before the drop occurred. You will lose all changes to the database made after that time. "

When the tablespace got dropped at 9:02, the database structure changed. In step 2, by starting the database in mount state, we're using the *current* controlfile which doesn't have info about the dropped tablespace. Can you really go back to 9am when the structure was different using this controlfile? I'd have thought the correct procedure would be to

So either the RMAN documentation missed something or I am being stupid here (which wouldn't be the first time). Howard R., this should be a piece of cake for you :-)

This brings up another question. How do we make sure which controlfile to use (current or backup) in incomplete scenarios like this. Say someone asked me to restore back to 2 months from today, how would I know whether to restore the old controlfile or use the current controlfile. It looks like I can get away without restoring controlfile if no structural changes happened in the in the past 2 months (datafiles/tablespaces/redologs added/dropped). Ofcourse, one hard way to learn is wait till the restore is complete and if the recovery bombs then obviously I have the wrong controlfile. But there MUST be a better way to know about this prior to starting restore/recovery. Is it "report schema"? Or ??

Thanks in advance.

Ravi Received on Fri Dec 12 2003 - 11:26:08 CST

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