Re: Backup Exec Oracle Agent

Hello,

When setting up Veritas Backup Exec I did not run in the installer problem. But had some other problems that I like you to know. I used the version from late 2001, may be 8.5 or 8.6, for online backup of an Oracle8i v 8.1.7 database.

After configuring the Oracle Agent with information on the sid, login and redo log location of the database, you use a selection window similar to the file backup window, where you specify what tablespaces to include in the online backup. Here you can also mark to include the complete database. This is what I did. Seems straigtforward, but ..

Now the backup gave an error that it failed to execute "álter tablespace temp begin online backup". The cause was that tablespace temp was created as a truly temporary tablespace (with create temporary tablespace). The alter tablespace command appears not to apply for such a tablespace. Veritas does not check this. Fortunately you can easily exclude the temp tablespace from the selected tablespaces in the Oracle Agent, and include it in the regular file backup. Still it confuses things. I reported the problem but Oracle and Veritas mutually blemed each other.

The second problem is about the settings of the check boxes for the handling of locked files. Of course the Oracle data files remain locked. Veritas has a setup window where you specify how to deal with open files, e.g. skip or wait. Here you must be very carefull. One of the choices is to backup the open files in a particular way which CAUSES ORACLE TO CRASH. Sorry I don't remember the label of this choice but it is a bit confusing as it suggests that you just want to read the open files a good as you can. But the option appears to take some sort of a partial lock on a database file that is stil in use. Even worse than the crash is that you CAN NOT RESTART THE DATABASE. It comes with ORA-00376: datafile can currently not be read, followed by ORA-01110 with the name of the file. You need to issue a RECOVER command while the database is still closed. Inbelievable that this occurs with a backup tool!

So be prepared.

Edzard. Received on Wed Jan 23 2002 - 13:28:34 CST