RE: Restoring with RMAN in nocatalog mode: spfile needed?

No, it is not necessary. Mind you that if you were to need to perform a
full restore in a new server, having a backup of the spfile would be
useful, however having it as a pfile is more than enough. Being in
NOCATALOG, the only repository for the backup would be the CONTROLFILEs,
meaning you should probably configure RMAN to take automatic backup
(CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP ON). Perhaps the tech people from
commvault are mistaken, or perhaps commvault has something special in
the SPFILE, but I highly doubt the latter.

 

One thing to note is that if you configure controlfile autobackup, every
rman backup automatically backs up the controlfile as well as the spfile
if it's in use, this is the behaviour of RMAN CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP...
and the spfile is usually <100K, so it does no harm to back it up. 

 

HTH

 

Guillermo Alan Bort

EDS - ITO DBA Main Group

 

 

From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Pintor
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 10:55 AM
To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Restoring with RMAN in nocatalog mode: spfile needed?

 

Hi list,

-- Oracle 9.2.0.8
-- Solaris 8
-- Commvault 7.0

I have an Oracle database being backed up through an external
application (Commvault). This application uses an RMAN script to back up
the database to tape.
Commvault is also backing up some filesystems from the server, and
ORACLE_HOME is included.

One of the guys from the Commvault support has advised us to include the
spfile in our RMAN backup, claiming that as we're in nocatalog mode, the
spfile is absolutely needed if we want to restore the database.

I create a pfile from spfile every night and keep it in some directory
in my ORACLE_HOME, so it's already backed up during the filesystem
backup.

My question is, do I really need to include the spfile in the RMAN
backup or can I just restore normally and recreate it later from my last
pfile?

Thanks a lot.

David

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