Backup options on HP 11i and Oracle 10G

[The Gunners]

Hi Everyone , Just thought I'd pick the brains of all the super techies on this forum. I have a server (hp900/rp4410)running HP/UX 11i and Oracle10G Databases. I want to obviously back up the server data and Hot Oracle backups using RMAN or whatever else is possible)Other than Data Protector , is there any other products / backup solutions you would recommend ? Thanks a mill

[Prashanth Waugh]

HI Davey,

You can use the business copy software with DP to take the backup. Its just like mirring software. mirring the P-Vol to S-Vol at disk level

you can do following things
1) first create the cluster and packages
2) then sync the production volume ie.P-VOL to secondary volume ie. S-VOL
means production volume will be mirrir with bc volume

3) when your backup window will occur shutdown the package ,break the mirror
now povl and s-vol will be seperate.
4) make the package up with p-vol
5) present the s-vol to backup server
6) after taking the backup represent the BC volume to node on which ur DB running (P-vol) and resysnc P-vol and S-vol.

the problem is that there will be outage on production when the package will goes down for backup that time ur db also will be down for few minute

Regards,
prashant

[The Gunners]

Hi Prashant , thanks v much for that input. Hmmmm , ok that wouldnt be an option for me as the DB are 24 x 7 on this production box unfortunately

[Mel Burslan]

Davey,

First off, why is this hpux server related question, in Linux forums ?

Coming to you question, I think you misunderstood the suggestion from Prashant, but on the flip side, he gave you advice, assuming your database volumes reside on a HP's XP class SAN disk array.

If your data is actually residing on this type of SAN, it is a pretty good advice and we use pretty similar method to back up our SAP databases, which are also 24x7 running apps as one expects. But this method has one caveat: It needs twice as much disk space on the SAN. Now that you can get a 1TB drive for $100 on the retails market, when you talk about SAN, numbers increase logarithmically and the cost issue may make this approach prohibitive.

Your method of putting the database in hot backup mode and using rman to back it up is the most common solution that I know of. But when the time comes to restore something out of it, you will pay the piper then I was told. I ain't no DBA here, just a sysadmin and don't deal with rman backups other than notifying the dba's if they fail.

As you can guess, there will be myriad of other options to consider when backing up the databases, but the decisive factor is what your environment looks like. As in what is your SAN looking like ? Is your data totally on SAN or if not, where is it ? What is your enterprise backup solution ? etc...

[The Gunners]

Mel , You are a minefield of advice and help as usual , thanks a million. Yikes a typo on my part re Linux , should be in other forum , sorry bout that. Yea need to see what route we go , someone else mentioned on the phone Veritas as well. Have to see costs involved in licencing etc

[Mel Burslan]

Veritas (ahem... err... Symantec) NetBackup is what we use as our enterprise backup solution. Have not used Data Protector for quite a while but I can tell you NetBackup licensing is not cheap unless you have a humongous data center and your environment is Symantec-products-centric, in which case you can have all-you-can-eat license for all the products to be deployed anywhere, which in turn may make the cost per server look reasonable. It is not anything different, by being offered to NetBackup as another solution. Just different branding and a different user interface. It is best to license the technology, where you have the highest count of people who can support it at different capacities. For instance if you are senior sysadmin and your forte in backup arena is data protector or its predecessor omniback, it would be quite a boneheaded move to go netbackup route because of the new learning curve. Of course it is not only the sysadmin to be consulted but the broader support personnel base is the determining factor in my opinion.

So, again as I commonly say on subjects like these, it is more of a political decision that the bean counters make at the end, given all parameters are equal or close-enough. It is a decision to be made upon, who throws in most swag and promotional free trips to technology forums to your bigwigs.

Good luck. I hope you do not end up holding the short stick at the end :)

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

Shalom,

Ideas:

Cold backup to disk.
Shut down database, file copy to a disk area.

Let fbackup, netbackup or legato pick these up as needed.

You can also do this with hot backups though restore is harder.

You can with Online JFS or storage utilities, create images or snapshots of your oracle database to minimize downtime.

SEP

[Tingli]

You can use Veritas netbackup to do the full rman backup every night.