Re: ** HELP! a couple of "expert" questions **

> bpuett_at_interpath.com (Brad Puett) wrote:
>
> >Everone has been so helpful to my questions, so I thought I'd
> >take a chance and post these questions which are critical to my
> >job ... I've been hired as a consultant, mostly to load data from
> >old tables to a new Oracle Database ... But some questions have
> >arisen that require DBA skills, and I don't seem to "totally"
> >understand how to solve them ... To wit:
 

> >1) I KNOW that if you have the ORACLE_SID and ORACLE_HOME
> > environment variables set correctly, you can log in and
> > do things with SQL*Plus ... I ALSO KNOW that if you have
> > the ORACLE_SID, you can find the corresponding ORACLE_HOME
> > by looking in the /etc/oratab file ...
 

> > What I don't understand is once you have both variables, HOW does
> > Oracle determine where your data files are? I mean physically,
> > not logically ... What I'm trying to do is prove that I'm working
> > with the correct tables in SQL*Plus, but I only know ORACLE_HOME
> > and ORACLE_SID ... I need to know which tables are "attached" to
> > these 2 variables ... SOMEONE ELSE set up the tables (who is no
> > longer with the company) and no one else there knows much about
> > Oracle (they've only had it for 6 weeks!)
 

> >2) What do most people use to back up their data base files? Tar or export?
> > I KNOW that you can use TAR to backup everything for the purposes
> > of restoring all the data and structures ... suppose you just
> >want a cum-
> > lative backup, what do you use? Suppose you want to ensure that, once
> > you've made changes to the structure of the database (i.e. you have to
> > increase the storage size, change some keys in tables, etc.), you can
> > restore the data back to the way it was (Note: I don't mean make any
> > changes that would preclude putting the data back correctly [adding new
> > fields, etc.])
 

> >3) If you happen to be an "expert" in the software package "Pointman", I have
> > some other questions (mostly in how it interacts with the
> >database, etc. --
> > nothing too technical!)
 

> >Thanks for any info you can give me!!!
 

> >--
> >Brad Puett
> >bpuett_at_interpath.com

hubba bubba is right about the datafiles. In SQL*PLUS just select * from dba_data_files and you will be able to see the tablespace names and associated paths for all datafiles. I'm not aware of any way to figure out which SID, other than to log into each SID and run the above command.

There are 3 ways to back up. Export is a logical backup over which you can exert a lot of control with regard to increments, etc. See the Utilities manual. Cold backup involves shutting down the instance and backup up all datafiles (don't forget controlfiles) using something like TAR. Hot backup works if you are running in ARCHIVELOG mode and allows you to back up without shutting down the instance. Oracle Press publishes an excellent reference called the Oracle Backup/Recovery Guide (or something like that), I've seen it at Border's and Barnes & Noble. Received on Thu Sep 05 1996 - 00:00:00 CEST