Re: Anyone using IBM's Flashcopy for hotbacks?

We have been using Hitachi and EMC SANs. The procedure is
1. Issue BEGIN BACKUP commands for *ALL* the Tablespaces 2. Use the SAN's commands to "split" the ShadowImage or "FlashCopy" for the DataFiles FileSystems
3. Issue END BACKUP commands
4. Issue an ARCHIVELOG CURRENT command [and we also BACKUP CONTROLFILE to the ArchiveLog FileSystem]
5. "split" the ArchiveLog FileSystem
6. Backup the "split" images of the DataFiles and ArchiveLogs --> Here I believe that it depends on whether use a SnapShot or SnapClone. If you use a SnapClone [ie an exact duplicate of the data is made available, also called ShadowImage or BCV], you'd have to wait till you backup this complete SnapClone before you proceed to the next step. If you use a SnapShot [ie the storage retains metadata information and maps all changed blocks], you can drop the SnapShot after completing the backup. 6. ReSync/Resilver the image.

The active database is continuously available. The ALTER SYSTEM SUSPEND command in Oracle will actually freeze all I/O. Check with IBM about how I/O to disk is completed when you "split" the images. The Storage must guarantee that all I/O has been completed against the SnapClone
image before the command returns to your script which then issues END BACKUP commands.
The Storage provider should be providing templates of the command scripts where you can "plug-in" your Oracle ALTER ... commands.

Hemant

For information on SnapShot and SnapClone see

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/infoCenter/askTheExpertsAnswer/0,294272,sid5_gci938037_tax294583,00.html

Hemant
At 02:39 PM 15-01-04 -0800, you wrote:
>We're considering an IBM FAStT SAN for a 30GB Oracle9i DB on HP/UX 11i. One
>option with the FAStT is called "FlashCopy". It's been six months since
>I've last looked at this, but our original idea was to smack all TSs into
>backup mode, FlashCopy, then smack all TSs out of backup mode. We'd also
>need to dump the copy to tape, then startup this copy as another instance,
>so the Tivoli plugin to have RMAN manage this probably wouldn't be worth the
>money for us.
>
>So, has anyone done this? Which FlashCopy options did you use? Any major
>gotchas to not do this? Does the Flash cause I/O problems during the backup
>due to the block reads from the original DB?
>
>TIA,
>Rich
>
>Rich Jesse System/Database Administrator
>rich.jesse_at_qtiworld.com Quad/Tech International, Sussex, WI USA
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Hemant K Chitale
Oracle 9i Database Administrator Certified Professional http://hkchital.tripod.com {last updated 05-Jan-04}

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