RAW LVs backup using unix utilities

[Amitava_HP-UX]

Is it possible to take backup of oracle raw LVs in tape using any of the unix utilities. I dont want to use any external backup software like Netbackup or Data protector. Will Ignite support this?

[Raj D.]

Hi Amitava ,

You can use dd command.

http://www.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de/doc/man/hpux/dd.1.html


Cheers,
Raj.

[BPatrick]

You could use the cpio command.
check the man pages of cpio

[David de Beer]

Regarding oracle raw volume backup -

You're probably aware of this already but the database needs to be down when you use dd for raw volume backup.

We successfully used the dd technique to migrate a database from one server to another after we ftp'd the files across the network - so dd does work :)

Alternatively, if the database 'is' down. You can do a export and backup that file only, along with the database structure in the VG's .

Regards,
David.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Cpio, tar, fbackup and the like will not backup a raw device (they can backup the device nodes themselves but not the underlying data). The only utility is dd and it is a very poor choice for production data; dd has no error recovery and no integrity checks.

[Alzhy]

For COLD/HOT RAW backups of a small to mid- sized Database raw volumes on a SAN *AND* your destination is Nearline Storage (Not TAPE!!), you most certainly can use "dd".

Syntax that I often use:

dd if=/dev/sapdata/rora001dbf bs=1024k of=/cheapsataraid/rora001.dd

For some of our large enterprise databases, we use split mirrors for bot HOT and COLD backup and use NetBackup to push the RAW splits to tape.

Hope this helps.