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how to keep a disaster recovery db up to date

 
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John Flanagan
Regular Advisor

how to keep a disaster recovery db up to date

I have set up a second box which will be kept in a different building for disaster recovery purposes.I will probably transfer archive logs over the network to do this. Does anybody do this and is it reliable. All help including scripts welcome. DB is Oracle 8.0.5.

Thanks,

John.
13 REPLIES 13
Julio Yamawaki
Esteemed Contributor
Solution

Re: how to keep a disaster recovery db up to date

Hi,

There's no secret on building a standby DB.
You simple have to make a full copy of the DB and apply all archivelogs.
In my case, I apply just one time a day, but you can make a crontab entry where you copy from the other box (using ftp in batch mode) and call a script to update the DB.
I don't have the script but if you need we can make an effort to develop this to help you.
Also, if you are a Metalink user, there are a lot of information about standy DBs in there.
Ian Dennison_1
Honored Contributor

Re: how to keep a disaster recovery db up to date

John,

You are probably best to write some custom scripts. If you want to be tricky, you can get the scripts to check for assured delivery, sequence numbers, and failures within Oracle to apply redo logs.

We tried NFS but settled on gzip-ping the logs and ftping them.

The main issue with this is determining if something has gone wrong, and providing yourself (or the operators) the information needed. Sorry, can't provide my old scripts for this; previous employer has them.

Got a Storage Array in the mix? Can you use it's Replication facility (EMC = SRDF, HP = Business Copy)? Veritas does some nice incremental update software, maybe you can look at that?

Share and Enjoy! Ian
Building a dumber user
John Flanagan
Regular Advisor

Re: how to keep a disaster recovery db up to date

Thanks for help. I will check metalink for more info.

Did you find this process reasonably reliable?

John.
Julio Yamawaki
Esteemed Contributor

Re: how to keep a disaster recovery db up to date

Hi,

We are using this process to make our Disaster Recovery Plan.
We make a test every 6 months and it's completely secure.
In your case, if you make a update of archivelog, say, evey 30 minutes, in case of disaster, you have lost of data of 30 minutes (maximum).
Note that, you can make 15 minutes or less, but it depends on the speed where your archivelogs are generated.
Yogeeraj_1
Honored Contributor

Re: how to keep a disaster recovery db up to date

 
No person was ever honoured for what he received. Honour has been the reward for what he gave (clavin coolidge)
John Flanagan
Regular Advisor

Re: how to keep a disaster recovery db up to date

Thanks Yogeeraj, That is an excelet reply and contains much if the information I require.

Julio, do you abtain this reliability with a scripted solution or do import logs manualy?

Does my standby database also need to be configured in archivelog mode?

Regards,

John.
Yogeeraj_1
Honored Contributor

Re: how to keep a disaster recovery db up to date

hi again,

The standby database can operate in NOARCHIVELOG mode. However, if ever you have to switch to it, you should immediate enable ARCHIVE LOG mode.

Again, remember that in 817 -- you can either deploy a managed standby where by the ARCH process delivers redo log files over the network to another system (requires enterprise edition) or you can move the archived redo log files yourself (non-managed standby).

In either case, the standby database is running in "recovery mode" -- meaning it is applying archives as they are recieved normally.

Also, note that standby database may be opened READ ONLY for queries and such in 8i. When the standby is opened read only, it is not applying archive redo log (eg: the logs are being collected but not applied).

As for "reliability with a scripted solution or do import logs manualy", i believe that it is up to you making it so. You have to ensure every thing yourself. Managed standby relieves you from this pain!

hope this helps!

Best regards
Yogeeraj
No person was ever honoured for what he received. Honour has been the reward for what he gave (clavin coolidge)
Graham Cameron_1
Honored Contributor

Re: how to keep a disaster recovery db up to date

Before you start writing shedloads of scripts, Oracle have a product to do all this for you.
It is called DataGuard, is supplied with 9i but has been packported to 8i.
We use it on 8i on all our production databases - works fine.

- Graham
Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.
John Flanagan
Regular Advisor

Re: how to keep a disaster recovery db up to date

Unfortunately we use 8.0.5. I think it is now time for me to work through all the documentation and get everyting up an running.

Thanks for the help everybody