Re: Poor Backup Strategy???

>In article <30F6A415.3018_at_ccm.tdsnet.com> Vijaya Kumar Nair writes:
>Glenn Burton wrote:
>>
>> The system administrators of one of the systems I work with do not shut down
>> the Oracle instance to take a cold backup. Instead they simply copy the
>> datafiles during the night. The reasoning behind this is that "the system
>> is quiet at that time of day, so there is really no reason shut down the
>> instance".
>>
>> Assuming that there really is no user activity in the database, is this a
>> sound backup strategy or should the instance be shut-down before copying
>> the files?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> _________________________________________
>> Glenn Burton
>> glenn.burton_at_cbis.com
>> Cincinnati Bell Information Systems
>> _________________________________________The process is not right. Instance
 should be shutdown before the files
>are copied in order to keep all files in sync.
>
>Vijay Nair>

While theoretically, there will be no change in the database files if there is no user activity, it would be disastrous if by any chance some user logs in while the backup is taking place. All the files will be out of sync. But if you are the database administrator, I don't see why you cannot create a cron job to shut down the database a little before the UNIX backups kick in. This is a onetime job, and you can do it yourself after informing the sysadmin.

Nalini Vallampati
UNIX Admin/Oracle DBA
AT&T Capital GIS ( Now NCR )
Miamisburg, Ohio 45342 Received on Mon Jan 15 1996 - 00:00:00 CET