Belinda,
We are using RMAN in conjunction with Netbackup, Veritas on Sun Solaris 2.6
and Oracle 8.0.4, 8.1.5, and 8.1.7.x databases.
RMAN is a bit of work to set up. The lower-level RMAN commands are a bit
cryptic and take some getting used to. However, once you get your scripts
set up and working, you can copy them around everywhere.
The hardest part for us was resolving intermittent problems with the
Netbackup interface to the tape drive. Oracle support kept saying things
were Veritas problems and Veritas support was uneven depending on who you
talked to. We had to upgrade our Netbackup software and patch it a good
bit before it worked reliably.
It took weeks to get the kinks worked out. Once we did however, it's been
very slick. Extremely automated and fairly easy to use. It's been very
reliable once we got the tape drive and tapes all sorted out. We've done
several successful recoveries and have been quite happy with how they went.
The recoveries were fairly automated with not many opportunities for human
error.
One piece of advice I would give would be to start with backups to disk and
get all of that working and then add the tape unit if you want it. As I
said, a lot of our initial, difficult problems were with the tape unit and
the interface to it.
If you can send someone to backup and recovery class, do that. If not,
read the RMAN manuals cover to cover and definitely purchase Oracle Backup
and Recovery Handbook by Velpuri and Adkoli. They cover the specifics for
lots of scenarios and the bare bones to start building your scripts.
It's hard to just give someone backup scripts to start with because they
need to be so heavily customized to reflect your environment.
Also, give some thought to your backup schedule and what sort of windows
you have to do backups. We started with weekly full, cumulative backups
and backing up our archive logs to tape daily before removal and then added
incrementals on some intervening days later. It can be an iterative
approach.
In closing, I'd say that any medium to large shop with mission-critical
databases needs a robust hot backup solution like RMAN. You're going to
have to invest the time and effort to get it up and going if you want
serious recoverability capability.
Cherie Machler
Oracle DBA
Gelco Information Network
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du To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
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Sent by: cc:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Comments on RMAN
om
11/29/01 06:25
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Please respond
to ORACLE-L
What is the general consensus from the list on using RMAN? Pros? Cons?
Any previous experience with problems as a result of using RMAN versus
cold and hot backups. I would appreciate your inputs. Thanks in advance.
Belinda K. Taylor
Database Analyst, Database Support
Database Application Services, Technology Systems Division
Information Technology Unit
George Mason University
Office: (703) 993-3346
Fax: (703) 993-3403
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