Volume Shadow Copy to backup Oracle

[Sim Alam (DoE)]

Hi,

Is anyone using Volume Shadow Copy to backup Oracle? Is this possible?

We have done something similar with Tru64 for years. The steps I had in mind were:
- Put oracle in backup mode
- Create a Volume Shadow Copies of the oracle NTFS filesystems
- take oracle out of backup mode
- Backup the shadow copies
- Remove the shadow copies

Is this feasible or am I just dreaming?

I know that in 10G release 2 Oracle will be natively leveraging Volume Shadow Copy as a writer with RMAN but that's a few months off yet.

Cheers,
Sim

[Julio Yamawaki]

Hi,

When you think just about copying data (datafiles, controlfiles and logfiles), Volume Shadow Copy is great, but, remember that in windows you must have all registry about Oracle created. So, in this case, you have a little procedures that you have to do before copying: install Oracle on windows with the same SID and same data structure and copy after.
You can use RMAN to do this copy, remeber that RMAN will copy only used data blocks and it can be faster.

Regards,

[David Ell]

Look into using VSS/VDS. HP has solutions already (FRS2003) for SQL and Exchange. I know Oracle has been involved with MS in a boot from san scenario. It is supposed to work great. I would contact Oracle/MS for more info.