RE: Using RMAN

Debi,

I run a weekly "restore validate" to make sure the tapes are available and working properly. Actually two runs a weekend - one for the database, and one for the archivelog backup. gives me a warm fuzzy every Monday morning.

Tom Mercadante
Oracle Certified Professional

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 3:17 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

At 10:11 AM 5/31/2002 -0800, DENNIS WILLIAMS wrote:
>Pat - I think you've pretty well covered the pros/cons from what I
>understand. I haven't implemented in production, so hopefully some people
>with some experience of living with RMAN will respond. How about it guys?

I have been using RMAN in production for three years, although only recently began backing up my archived logs with it as well. I do take exports as well, to make simple table recovery easier. We use Veritas NetBackup for tape.

I keep an RMAN catalog database separate from the production database. It is now on the same server, although originally I had it on a development server but decided that was too risky. Immediately after a backup, I export the RMAN catalog database, then take an OS backup to tape of that dmp file.

Our weekly cold backups were over 8 hours and with RMAN, the equivalent (level 0 consistent) takes about 2 and a half hours. Daily incrementals take an hour or less. I regularly create/refresh development and test databases from production with RMAN. These clones (what a great test of your backups!) generally take about 2 hours, and now that I have the archived logs, I can have a copy of production right to the minute.

I don't have to worry about changing backups when adding datafiles. I monitor my log_archive_dest directory and when it gets to about 50% full I kick off a RMAN backup that puts a copy on two different tapes before deleting the input (archived logs on disk). My current issue is with tapes (and that is always an issue no matter what method you use), but I came across an RMAN command, "restore validate," that I wonder if it will verify that my tape is ok. Twice I have tried to do a certain restore and the tape has been bad. I had to pick an earlier date and use archived logs...

I cannot imagine NOT using RMAN!

Debi

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Author: Debi
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Author: Mercadante, Thomas F
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