Re: Backup - hot or not?

"Preston Kemp" <dontwantany_at_nowhere.com> wrote in message news:MPG.18da88635b065e0898968b_at_news.cable.ntlworld.com...
> Hi folks, I'm going to install 8i & setup a new database for a client
> next week, but I'm struggling to decide what to do about backups. It
> only needs to be available during normal office hours.
>
> They've been using a V7 database for a few years, & just take it down
> every night & do a dump. They're happy enough to lose a day's data -
> weird but that's the way it is!
>
> My question is what's the benefit, if any, of switching them to hot
> backups? I presume the downside is the overhead of switching on archive
> log mode.
>
> The system specs are PIII 500 Poweredge, 512MB RAM, 7 disks, max. 30
> concurrent users, schema dump is around 1.7Gb. Any opinions gratefully
> received, either on backup strategy or setup in general (I.e. how to
> split the files, RAID etc). Beer tokens for the best reply ;-)
>

Hi Preston,

If they're happy, they're happy I guess.

But I would seriously look at migrating them to a supported version of Oracle as a start.

I would also recommend moving the database to archivelog mode and going that one step further and protect them from any data loss. They might be happy to lose one day but they might be ecstatic to lose nothing when the time comes.

Whether or not you use a hot/cold backup is not too much of an issue if you have a suitable down window each night. Note though that the database has to "warm up" when it restarts and may result in some unnecessary performance issues each morning. Note that a cold backup is more "simplistic" and can be fully restored and started if required. They're basically your plus/minuses.

I would look at using RMAN (after your migration) and schedule nightly online backups as required. With RMAN you don't suffer the overheads of hot backups, have some security regarding the validity of the backups, improve your resume skills and with archiving have a fully protected, no performance impact backup strategy.

If RMAN isn't your cuppa tea (or migration for some unacceptable reason is not an option), then either hot/cold could quite happily be used (based on the above issues).

Good Luck

Richard Received on Thu Mar 13 2003 - 08:17:02 CST