[Q] Snapshot Database Problem

I am looking for the best and most cost efficient solution to the following scenario:

We have a 20 Gb Oracle Financials (v10.5) database (v7.1.6) that we want to take snapshots of on a regular basis for development, setup testing, and possibly training. The problem I am facing arises in how to efficiantly and routingly take the production instance snapshot over to the test environment without burdening myself with a lot of effort being put into re-applying setup changes that have been applied in the test environment.

Essentially, the users want current data in the test environment without having to re-apply the development and setup changes that have happened since the last snapshot. The exporting/importing of developer tables is not that big of a problem, but the complex setup changes that may have taken place since the last snapshot is a problem.

We have the AP, AR, GL, and AP financial applications currently installed on the production instance. In the next phase of the project, the users will be setting up the PO portion of the applications. For the most part, out customization of the apps has been minimal to say the least (I consider myself very lucky).

My spin on the problem was to take the
offline backups from the production instance, restore them to the development box and rename the instance. I would then import any developer table (objects) that were inplace prior to the snapshot. This leaves me with how to re-apply the setup changes to the financials without tons of overhead.

As many of you are aware, the financials database is not any easy database to simply export in one location and import into another. There is way too much overhead. I saw someone try once. It was not a pretty sight.

Well without rambling on forever, I'll now ask for any input or kindly suggestions anyone might have as to a possible solution(s). My guess is that several people are in the same sort of situation.

Thanks in advance for any help you are able to provide,

Tom Koithan,
tom.koithan_at_merrillcorp.com Received on Fri Nov 17 1995 - 00:00:00 CET