Re: Oracle: how to demonstrate successful restore?

On Thu, 26 Jan 2006 18:46:24 -0800, dominica_at_gmail.com wrote:

> Actually, I agree with Joel Garry and Daniel..and so on...
> We could always backup the database in tape, but we might NEVER get it
> back.

That's called a black hole backup. It's essentially equivalent to doing backup to /dev/null. On the plus side, you will never run out of space, but you might have a problem with restoring it.

> Sometimes, tape could be bad after leaving there for a while.
> And I usually recommend every 5 months, every company should do at
> least one
> recovery test , even on a small DB .

5 MONTHS? Are you sure that the tape is ripe enough for a recovery test after only 5 months? You must let sun flares and electromagnetic storms to take their natural course, as Simon Trevaglia would say on certain occasions. Restoring 5 months old backup makes a lot of business sense, I'm sure that numerous business analysts would be grateful to you for providing them less then half a year old database, but I'd rather let that tape to mature for few more months before attempting to verify it.

> And normally, an DBA should do/test recovery for different recovery
> scenario.

What is a "recovery scenario"? DBA has to be able to restore the database. DBA does backup of the database, DBA does backup of archivelogs, DBA does a full export of RMAN catalog database afterward, preferably by using scheduled scripts. Tapes then go to the tape duplicator where they are duplicated and stored in two different locations. If and when the need arises, DBA restores the database, from the backup that is less then 24 hours old, if possible, and if it isn't, then from the newest available backup. Testing recovery is done from the complete set of tapes, that's it. In case of a failure, DBA has to know what to restore and where. If you have a RAC with one or two standby databases, then you don't have a failure. You lose one, you continue with another. The same database is still available. Emergency restore to another server is done only when everything is lost.
DR test is not a database recovery course to practice recovering tablespace containing the precious EMP and DEPT tables. DR test is a simulation of a disaster in which, typically, the whole data center is lost. In other words, someone tells you that all your base are belong to us and that you are on the way to destruction.

> (complete and in-complete recovery and full-db recovery or partial
> recovery).

I believe that management may have something to say about the partial recovery. They might not be thrilled by missing data.

In addition to that, "BSE certification" was meant to bring a smile on the faces of my Commonwealth friends, like Jonathan, Nuno and Niall. BSE certification of a database would be especially popular type of request in UK. DBA asking for such certification would have to be an Oracle Certifiable Person, OCP for short.

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