Re: What to backup in Oracle?

Niall,

I'm VERY new to Oracle [the boss handed me [middle of November 2000] the CD's to 8i, gave me a brand new NT server, and said he had to have it by Christmas, 2000. I'm not an NT administrator nor a dba. So I learned it the hard way -read the manuals and ask questions.

I tried using RMAN for backup. It appeared to work, but I'm cautious about how to do a restore. I found that I can log into the console mode, then start up the Data Administrator (? or something like that), and set up an internal backup and run it as an internal job. And let Oracle set it up and run. My first test of this was last Thursday. So now my backups are:

1. do an incremental, internal backup Monday thru Thursday to disk;
2. do a full backup on Friday, to disk, as most users only work a half day on Friday.
3. Using Veritas Backup Exec for NT, I do a daily, incremental backup to tape. This is done after step 1 so I have backed up the data too excluding the database files for Oracle and SQL, as each is backed up, internally, to disk.
4. Using Veritas, I do a Full backup on Friday excluding the Oracle database & SQL database files; but including the internally backed up files.

If I can procure another tape drive, I can copy the original tapes, and store the
"grandfather" tapes at an off-site storage facility that we have used for the companies' NT servers and my VAXcluster [I'm the system manager].

When I used RMAN, I did a "backup database" as opposed to picking the files. And then found out in the documentation, that I was indeed doing a full backup.

Mike
"Niall Litchfield" <n-litchfield_at_audit-commission.gov.uk> wrote:

>Kind of backup 101 but there you are.
>
>There are two different types of backups that can be performed on an Oracle
>database.
>
>1. Logical - otherwise known as export. Sybrand has covered this well.
>2. Physical - otherwise known as copying the files someplace else.
>
>Either of these can be done on a full or partial basis. Export because it is
>a logical solution ranges from a single table or index , up to the entire
>database. Backup because it works at the file level can work from a single
>file upwards though typically you'd want to backup at least one tablespace
>or all the control files. I believe that using RMAN you can backup just
>changed data blocks since the last backup. I have yet to meet anyone
>actually using this though.
>
>If you take the physical backup route you have to do one of two things.
>
>a) shut the database down before copying the files.
>or
>b) tell oracle you are about to perform a backup, and then tell it when it
>is finished.
>
>Finally a physical backup can be performed either in archivelog mode , or
>not. If your database is in archivelog mode you can restore up to the point
>of failure from your last good backup. Otherwise you can only restore the
>last good backup.
Received on Sun Apr 15 2001 - 08:22:58 CEST