RMAN: BIG Problem Found When Using CONTROLFILE As RCVCAT

Hi All,

   We were told by an Oracle consultant about a big UNDOCUMENTED problem that you can encounter when you use the CONTROLFILEs as your recovery catalog.

  We actually encountered this problem. If you make Db structural changes
(add

TS, DF, drop TS, DF) YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RESTORE. Because Oracle needs a recent CF for the backup inventory, it does not begin recovery with the
correct CF and it gets "all cornfused".

  A possible workaround is to always do a LVL0 after ANY STRUCTURAL change, but you then would not be able to recover to any time prior to that LVL0 backup. Not pretty.

  We are changing our approach and will begin using DB RCVCAT's for all RMAN installations.

(If this has been helpful to you, please visit http://dbamon.com )

Bill Border
Agilent Technologies (formerly Hewlett-Packard) bill_border_at_agilent.com
Low-Cost UX-Based Oracle/Informix Monitor: http://dbamon/com Received on Fri Aug 18 2000 - 15:41:35 CEST