Re: Oracle DB Backup Procedure

"Frankie" <francesco.palazzo_at_tiscalinet.it> wrote in message news:8l56k5$lli$1_at_pegasus.tiscalinet.it...
> Dear,
> I would be really very grateful if someone could give
> me good hints on how to backup an Oracle DB.
> I know there are many ways and tons of docs, but what I am
> interested in are
> the general principles to perform a good Oracle DB backup, tricks
> and/or crucial
> points.
>

There's a four-day course at Oracle for this -and it's not 4 days just for the hell of it you know!!

That said, you have two basic options. Cold backups simply consist of 1) shutdown the database 2) use operating system commands to take copies of ALL the files associated with your database 3) start the database back up.

Hot backups (ie, you need to take copies whilst still allowing users total access to their data) involve 1) alter tablespace X begin backup 2) operating system copies of the datafiles associated with that tablespace 3) alter tablespace X end backup 4) alter tablespace Y begin backup... and so ad infinitum -or at least, repeat the process until all the tablespaces associated with your database have been backed up. In hot backups, don't bother taking copies of your on-line redo logs. But you will want copies of your control files: alter database backup controlfile to trace (produces a useful 'create controlfile' script, but it needs to accurately reflect the physical structure of your database), or alter database backup controlfile to 'path/filename' (produces a binary copy of the controlfile in the specified destination.

You can NOT do hot backups unless you operate your database in ARCHIVELOG mode (well, you can take copies of the files etc, but they will be internally inconsistent, and thus useless). You will therefore have to take archives, and there are heaps of parameters available to specify where they will go, how many of them there should be and what their names should be.

Then there's the RMAN tool which can be used to do both hot and cold backups, in ARCHIVELOG mode or not. But if you think I'm going to explain that here, forget it: it has the syntax from hell!!

Hope that gives you some idea of the sort of issues involved. However, if you want anything further, perhaps have a quick look at my own notes for giving the Oracle Backup and Recovery training course: http://www.geocities.com/howardjr2000/BUR_Material/HJRBUR.zip It's Oracle 8.0.5-oriented, but it's not changed out of all recognition in 8.1.5 and above, and is a reasonable introduction to the basics.

Regards
HJR
> Please e-mail me at palafra_at_tin.it
>
> Many thanks in advance for your very appreciated help.
>
> Kind Regards,
> f
>
>
Received on Wed Jul 26 2000 - 00:00:00 CEST