Re: unix dump ok for backing up oracle server?

Connor McDonald wrote:

> Richard Chen wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> > I would like to know if it is safe to do unix dump command for
> > backing up file systems to backup a live oracle server.
> > It is safe if oracle server is shutdown. But if oracle server is
> > running in archivelog mode, is unix dump a safe method to
> > backup the oracle server? It will be very convenient if it is
> > safe since one does not need to worry about writing specific
> > backup scripts for the database backup. It doesn't sound like it
> > but I want to be sure.
> >
> > Thanks for any info.
> >
> > Richard
>
> The answer is NO. I've seen places that have had the philosophy
>
> "We back it up live and it seems to work".
>
> That may be the case SOMETIMES but eventually these people are in for a
> big surprise...

The only safe way to back up the database when it cannot be taken down is with a hot backup. You can only do a hot backup if the database is in archivelog mode and you must put each tablespace in backup mode before copying the corresponding datafiles. If you don't do all of this then if you attempt to perform a database recovery from the backup you may end up with a situation where you cannot do a complete recovery and will have to bring the database up in a corrupted form and once that happens you'll have to export all of your data and then recreate the instance. Not much fun (as I learned a few weeks ago). Received on Thu Aug 26 1999 - 13:23:21 CDT