Re: Snapshot DB's in Exadata?

  • From: Aaron Leonard <aachleon@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: dbvision@xxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:15:01 -0600

Thanks for the reply, Nuno.  I am familiar with cloning from an RMAN backup
(thanks to Kevin).  I see 2 big issues with that strategy here though:

1.  I'd have to run an RMAN backup on a multi-terabyte database in the
middle of batch processing.  On an Exadata system, that might not take very
long though, depending on where we're writing those backups to.  We
currently have our snapshot databases up and executing transactions within
15 minutes.

2.  My assumption (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that the RMAN backups
wouldn't be written to the Exadata storage cells, but would need to go to an
external NFS device.  If that's correct, my snapshot db's no longer reside
on Exadata and I then lose the benefits of our potential Exadata investment.





On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 4:02 AM, Nuno Souto <dbvision@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Aaron Leonard wrote,on my timestamp of 14/01/2011 7:12 AM:
>
>
>
>
>> On various schedules, we take snapshots (EMC storage), mount them r/w to
>> different mountpoints and startup Oracle instances on those.  The point is
>> to
>> have fast, point-in-time views of our data, which can be modified and
>> reported
>> on for an extended period of time.  At any one time, we have up to 20
>> different
>> snapshot databases running.   Some are retained up to 3 months before we
>> recreated them from a new snapshot.
>>
>>
>
> Wouldn't be surprised if snapshots - or at least similar functionality -
> won't available soon.  Oracle is starting to compete with traditional SANs
> and this is a very strong argument in favour of said hardware.  I for one
> wouldn't be able to run our site without snapshots, nowadays: it'd be
> impossible to implement our DR strategy without them, for example.
>
> The other thing I recommend you do is have a read through this:
> http://kevinclosson.wordpress.com/
> and the "clone db without snapshots" series of articles.
> It is quite possible your solution is already there, depending on your
> Oracle release level and ability to run NFS.
>
> Worth a read if nothing else to find out what is possible now.
>
> --
> Cheers
> Nuno Souto
> in sunny Sydney, Australia
> dbvision@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> --
> //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>
>
>

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