Re: Comments?

On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:28:53 -0400, "Dereck L. Dietz" <dietzdl_at_ameritech.net> wrote:

>The below is a portion of an email describing how the plan for disaster
>recovery has been explained to us. This is an Oracle 10g database running
>on Windows 2003 server.
>
>
>
>The way we did the disaster recovery backup is:
>
> Step1:
>
> 1.. Export the entire db (with no rows option) - This will get a copy of
>export to recreate the database with all users and system settings.
> 2.. Export the entire schema (with no rows option) - This will get a copy
>of export to recreate empty table shells with indexes, keys and all
>procedures, packages, functions and any other metadata for each user.
> 3.. Export every table by schema (all table data) - This is all the data.
>Step2: Every export file is zipped and encrypted using gpg
>
>Step3: Move the whole archive to USB drive.
>
> The entire process takes about 5 full days. Which is ok considering its
>once a month job. Most of it is automatically done except for moving to usb
>and preparing the scripts. The total size of this is about 170GB.
>
>We have 1tb disks which can hold up to 5 or 6 of these copies.
>
>
>

This is not about disaster recovery. This is about flagrant incompetence.
First of all export is NOT a disaster recovery option. Export is a *logical* dump. This means if you use exp imp to recover a database you do NOT have a physically identical copy, so you CAN'T use archives to recover your database.

Secondly: you describe this nonsense is going to take 5 (FIVE) full days. Will the 'export' be consisted? OF COURSE NOT.

Apart from that : a 170 Gb 'export' is nonsense. Did you take into account how much time it takes to import it?

The only option if you insist on misusing exp as a disaster recovery mechanism for this database, is using transportable tablespaces.

However, I would recommend using this 'plan' or the paper it was printed on as toilet paper.

-- 
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA