Re: Getting started with RMAN
- From: Guillermo Alan Bort <cicciuxdba@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: janine@xxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 09:12:08 -0300
Just a note... EXPORTS ARE NOT BACKUP! they are a mean for transporting data
between databases... THEY SHOULD NEVER be considered backups or relied upon
as backups.
That being said, there are rare instances in which having an export turns
out to be useful and reduces back-to-production time, but it is not a
restore/recovery, just a solution to a (usually) user-caused problem (like
data deletion).
The only truly valid backup taken with 'export' would be a cold export (i.e.
with the DB in restricted mode, and even then ensuring that no app user has
dba privileges), but if you have the downtime window, a cold backup is much
better and a lot faster to restore.
sorry for the slight OT.
hth
Alan.-
On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 7:05 PM, Janine Sisk <janine@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On May 4, 2010, at 2:56 PM, Jeremiah Wilton wrote:
>
> > On May 4, 2010, at 2:41 PM, Janine Sisk wrote:
> >
> >> I just took a quick look at Oracle's Backup and Recovery doc to see what
> I would be getting myself into in using RMAN. Since this is an Amazon EC2
> instance, there's no tape drive and my only choice is to back up to "disk"
> (really an EBS volume created for this purpose).
> >
> > Janine,
> >
> > Is there a reason you don't want to use Oracle's OSB Cloud MML for RMAN
> to back up to S3?
>
> I'm pretty sure we don't have a license for it and I'm way too far down the
> food chain of DBAs to ask for it.
>
> > That's pretty much the standard way to back up Oracle on EC2. If you
> can't afford the license for that, I would go with hot backup mode plus EBS
> snapshots to S3. Simply backing up to an EBS volume in the same
> availability zone seems like too little protection for my taste.
>
> I already have two forms of backups going - EBS snapshots done with the
> database in backup mode, and a full export every night (which also gets
> backed up to a different snapshot). This would be a third method, and I
> would snapshot the RMAN EBS as well. You can never have too many backups,
> right? :)
>
> > On EC2, I use one EBS volume as a flash (fast??) recovery area (FRA) for
> RMAN disk backups of the database and also as my local archivelog
> destination. I then use RMAN's "backup recovery area" to S3 with backup
> optimization using the OSB Cloud MML.
> >
> > If the retention configuration is set correctly, you never have to write
> archivelog management scripts or manually delete anything. When the FRA
> reaches 100% full, as long as it satisfies retention parameters, Oracle
> removes the oldest items in the FRA to make room for incoming
> archivelogs/backups. It is very hands-off.
>
> That's exactly why I'm contemplating setting up RMAN now, instead of
> waiting for that mythical time when I will have more time to think about it.
>
> >> So... what's your favorite book/website/other resource on configuring
> RMAN for the first time?
> >
> > Oracle Press just came out with "Oracle RMAN 11g Backup and Recovery" (
> http://amzn.to/cn8LyoI ). I guess I am supposed to steer you towards that
> since I wrote the chapter on backing up to Amazon S3. OTOH, the Oracle
> documentation is pretty decent too.
>
> Duly noted - thanks! I just realized I have the 9i version of that book,
> which I guess tells you how long I've been thinking about doing this...
>
> janine
>
> > Regards,
> >
> > Jeremiah Wilton
> > Blue Gecko, Inc.
> > http://www.bluegecko.net
> >
>
>
> --
> //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>
>
>
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