VA Storage Business Copy

[Kenneth Yap]

Dear Experts,
I have created one LUN for Oracle database and I have also created business copy for that LUN. When we do backup on the database from the business copy LUN. Did we need to stop the database server before we backup the data from the business copy LUN ?

Thks

[harry d brown jr]

Yes, You should put the database into hot backup mode, otherwise if there was any updating activity on the database, then your backup could be garbage (out of sync). A DBA can better answer how to do this.


live free or die
harry

[Steven Gillard_2]

Definitely - while the BC volume is being sync'd your database should be cleanly shutdown, otherwise any copy you take will be useless for recovery.

You may be able to use hot backup mode, but for this to work your archived redo logs and control files must be backed up separately off the *original* copy, and every tablespace with datafiles on the LUN being backed up must be in hot backup mode (ie ALTER TABLESPACE BEGIN BACKUP). Also, the redo logs etc should be backed up after you have taken the tablespaces out of backup mode. In fact the redo logs and control files should be on a different LUN than the db files because it will be a lot of unnecessary extra work to take BC's of this stuff.

I would heavily recommend you shut the database down prior to doing the BC sync to save yourself all this trouble.

Also have a look at Oracle's recovery manager (RMAN) if you haven't already as its block level hot backup feature is very nice. Then instead of using the space on the XP for a BC volume you could use it as a filesystem for storing RMAN backup pieces.

Regards,
Steve

[Kurt Beyers.]

Yes, you need to stop Oracle when you take a business copy as the snapshot needs to be consistent. The snapshot is taken fast so that the downtime is limited to only a few minutes.

If you have Omniback as backup solution, you can take an online backup of the database via snapshotting. The database must not be halted in this case and the database is only in backup mode during the snapshot. Afterwards the snapshot is mounted and the Oracle database is opened from there to take an online backup, while the production database isn't needed any more for the backup.

Kurt

[Tom Danzig]

Your best solution is to:
- Shut down DB
- Sync file system
- Split BC pairs
- Restart DB
- Do backup of split pairs
- Re-sync when backup completes.

If you must do hot backups (like we have to):

- Do a log file switch
- Put DB in backup mode
- Sync file system
- Split BC pairs
- Take DB out of backup mode
- Do a log file switch
- Do backup of DB files on split pairs
- Do backup of archive logs
- Re-sync when backup completes.

[Ooi Thiam Yew]

Hi all,

I have a similar situation with Kenneth but my database is not Oracle but Unidata. Can I do a split BC, backup the second LUN and then re-sync when the backup complete?

By the way, have you all heard of Unidata and what is the right way to backup Unidata? Does it support online backup?

Thx in advance.

[Roger Baptiste]

hi,

You do not need to stop the database when you are syncing up the Business copy volume. But, you would definitely need to bring down the database or coalese it (no activity) before you split the Business copy. The split won't go through, until the copy is synced.

Once you do the split, make sure the business copy is ok by bringing up the database copy of it temporarily. After you confirm this, you can start the backup. You can bring up the database of the actual copy, even as the backup is going on.

HTh
raj