So we didn't scare you off with our diskscrubbing advice. *smile*
Yep this is a classic mainframe backup technique. You make a triple
mirror (Master + 2 mirrors) then when you want to back up your database you
* stop accepting transactions
* clear all the pending transactions
* break one mirror off
* enable transactions
* mount the mirror read-only back onto your database
* back up the ro copy of the db
* unmount the ro copy
* reattach and sync the mirror to the master database
That way you still have your mirror with current pending transactions
even if you are in the middle of doing a backup. And the downtime for
the backup can be just a few seconds. This was used in the day when
RAID systems wheren't that common. Today I would use either 2 raid
systems, or even a raid system, and some JBOD for the backup mirror.
Since EMC is still a mainframe disk company, the Syms can do this sort
of thing. I've never used it, but with all the support that EMC
offers, you should be able to cut a deal to get setup working with your
rep.
Netapp has the same functionality, it's call snap mirror I think.
Again, you are talking about spending a bit of cash with netapp. They
should give you engineering support to make it work.
Hope this helps.
johno
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