Re: ORACLE in Sun 4.1.3 and a big tape

In article <1993Jul13.080754.17317_at_amoco.com> zdxc0d_at_amoco.com writes:
>In article 33710_at_suned1.Nswses.Navy.MIL, lev_at_ipxed5.nswses.navy.mil (Lloyd E Vancil) writes:
>>
>>Does anyone out there know the magic to
>>write archive log files directly to a tape?
>>
>>I have an on board hd Xybyte and I cna cron the dump
>>but I would rather be able to just have the tape mounted and
>>let logwrtr do it.....
>>
>If you want to archive directly to tape you have to dedicate a tape
>drive to the ARCH process otherwise you have to do it manually.
>However as the database is only as fast as the slowest write to the log
>files is it wise to do this?

Since the arch process is doing the copy you shouldn't have a problem performance wise provided that the copy is finished by the time the logwriter needs to over write the log file.

My problem has always been 1) the idea that a hung tape drive will shut down my db and 2) the terror that the tape will snap on restore.

I always prefered to keep 2 days of logs online so that any particular log file would be on two nightly backups.

I think the magic to doing a write directly to tape is to make the log_archive_dest=/dev/???? where ???? is your systems no rewind tape devices.

Of course I have never actually done this and I was given this info by a oracle instructor who followed up by saying:

"But you never want to actually do this because it has never  really worked well."

-- 
Regards, 

Lee E. Parsons                  		Baker-Huges Inteq, Inc
Oracle Database Administrator 			lparsons_at_exlog.com