Re: Lightweight method for testing database backup processes
- From: Mladen Gogala <gogala.mladen@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: dbakevlar@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2017 21:25:29 -0400
On Mon, 21 Aug 2017 16:56:51 +0300
Kellyn Pot'Vin-Gorman <dbakevlar@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Exadata has sparse Clone copy capability, thin clone via EM, snap clone and
others, which is similar and I'd recommend looking into the potential of
using that to verify your backups when you create the test master. Oracle's
documentation spread out, (considering how many different and varying levels
of products/costs). Since you have exadata, I'm going with this doc-
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E80920_01/SAGUG/exadata-storage-server-snapshots.htm#SAGUG20386
This will eliminate the complexity and storage demands with your current
scenario, along with a template that is easily repeatable.
EMC, NetApp, Pure, Hitachi HDS, Dell Compellent and Equalogic, IBM XIV and many
other arrays have the same capability for a very long time. So do ZFS, ACFS,
Brtfs, JFS2, NTFS and some other file systems, as well as numerous backup
suites. First 3 file systems in that list are made by Oracle Corp. What you
call "database virtualization" is a combination of snapshots and thin
provisioning. I agree that "virtualization" sounds better, but let's call a
spade a spade, shall we? I am not a marketing type and I like discussing in
understandable terms. So called "virtual database" is a database cloned from
another database using snapshots and thin provisioning. Both snapshots and thin
provisioning have been around for a very, very long time. I was breaking BC
(Business Continuity) volumes and creating a standby db or read only copies
with Oracle 8.3.4 on HP-UX on PA RISC in the 20th century.
The same can be said about cloud: "cloud" means running your software on the
equipment that belongs to somebody else. The whole "cloud" story is the best
marketing ploy in the IT that I have ever seen. If you think that running stuff
on ther people's computers is so new, I advise reading "The Cuckoo's Egg"
written by Clifford Stoll in the 80's. The book is very interesting on several
levels. It begins by a system administrator discovering a discrepancy in the
charges for the spent CPU time and actual CPU time spent. That means that there
were people buying and selling CPU time on somebody's computer in the 80's. It
wasn't called the "cloud" then, but it was essentially the same thing. Not even
virtualization is so new, as people who remember VM/CMS can confirm. For those
who don't know about it, there is Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(operating_system)
Mladen Gogala
Oracle DBA
Tel: (347) 321-1217
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