Re: training for new DBA's
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2014 05:58:08 -0700
Message-ID: <53074D60.4090903_at_1001111.com>
> From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Martin Bach
> Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2014 2:07 AM
>
> I have been following this thread and found it very interesting. So far all I did was lurking but the last post prompted a more general reply (and reminded me of Sir Alan Sugar).
> So when a DBA is in a position to having to restore service, what do you do? I personally opted for Data Guard or similar replication technology in all the sites I worked. Today's database sizes make it difficult to restore within a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately "reasonable" does not necessarily reflect what's technically possible but what the "business" is willing to tolerate.
> Activating a standby removes the need to restore, but the problem must be suitable. Logical corruption will require a point in time recovery and you'd have to have another standby with delayed redo application to counter that, and a bit of luck. Having image copies of your database in the FRA seems like a nice thing to have but effectively doubles your space requirements. Those image copies can be rolled forward very quickly and cut the restore time to near 0 though.
> So I wonder who has the time (-> management behind your desk) to first create a backup of say a 10 TB database and then begins working on the restore operation. Please don't get me wrong, I agree that you must be able to get back to where you started, but at the same time wonder if that is possible. While you are taking the backup you obviously can't start working on restoring the service. A split mirror ("BCV copy") would be almost ideal. Split the mirror, take the backup of the broken database while working on restoring service....
In the past the time to backup the failed database just had to be accepted. Nowadays, every single client we have has either a hot backup server or a sophisticated array that allows silvering. For clients who want to keep costs down we will take the old database server and run it as a hot backup. 90% of the time the "old" server is still capable of handling the load. If not we tell management they can only run their reports at night :) Amazing how that frees up budget room :)
The majority of our tiny clients (50 employees, 10GB database) have no issue spending $10-20K for a standby machine.
And if a manager is behind your desk: push the keyboard away, turn around and face him or her, and say "What can I do for you?". When they explode, state:
"I thought I was doing something important but obviously I was incorrect in setting my priorities."
We can (and do) train our juniors on how to that :)
HTH
Dave
-- Dave Morgan Senior Consultant, 1001111 Alberta Limited dave.morgan_at_1001111.com 403 399 2442 -- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-lReceived on Fri Feb 21 2014 - 13:58:08 CET