Re: Vertias/Symantec NetBackup vs. RMAN

Hi Steven,

Yes, there are some advantages of using Netbackup along with RMAN. As others have mentioned it is good to use both these together. The NetBackup console just runs RMAN scripts and pulls the data for backup (either to tape or disk).

You need to think from a recovery perspective. If you just use NetBackup (without RMAN) to backup your databases, you will need to put all your tablespaces in hot backup mode (not required with Oracle 10g as there is a single command for the whole database) and then perform a backup with NetBackup. You will need to ask NetBackup to copy the archivelog files and then delete the archivelogs which are now backed up.

With RMAN (with or without NetBackup), these things are much easier and can be automated.

If you need to recovery your database, and you restore these backup datafiles, the recovery portion has to be done manually by a DBA. Either incomplete or complete depends on what happened to your original database. Restoration of the required archivelog files too will need manual intervention.

With an RMAN integrated NetBackup schedule, restoration and recovery of the database can be very simple, assuming you have everything available. You only need to get into RMAN prompt and use two commands,

RMAN> restore database;
RMAN> recover database;

this is assuming you don't want to do any incomplete recovery which is also very easy if RMAN is used. block level recovery is also an useful feature of RMAN which NetBackup cannot provide.

>From a planning perspective, in case you use SAN or buy a new SAN box
tomorrow, you can integrate large database backups as well as 'LAN-less' backups with NetBackup's latest version for all your databases.

The only thing is $$ for the Oracle Agents :-)

A combination of both NetBackup and RMAN will work better than just one of them.

What you need to watch out for is NetBackup AND RMAN Rentention Policies, Tape Retention as well as Backup files/sets retention.

cheers
anand Received on Thu Dec 15 2005 - 01:10:27 CST