Re: SAN's, snapshots and online backups questions...

Glen A Stromquist <glen_stromquist_at_no.spam.yahoo.com> wrote:

>Our network admin is looking at various SAN strategy/solutions to
>implement for our storage need. I think that part of the sales pitch he
>has been getting is that the "snapshot" technology they employ
>eliminates the need for any existing oracle backup strategies.

We are about just doing that: attach all servers to a central storage via Fibre Channel in a SAN configuration.

Why? We are not able to do reliable backups any more. Doing a "cold" backup through the network takes many hours (about 250 GB). Transfering the archive logs to the Archive Server is a pain at 200 MB/min.

Our plan: We use a HSM system (a Tape Library that automatically archives copies of files in the online cache disks to tape and stages them back automatically when requested), and it will be a SAN member too. Then, doing a DB backup is very simple: Make a snapshot of the LUN containing the DB files (this is only a virtual copy) in seconds while the corresponding tablespaces are in backup mode. Reassign this Snapshot LUN to the Archive Server, which automatically will put everything into tape - done. No network traffic needed. No Server CPU performance involved.

By the way, another advantage of snapshots is that one can setup a test DB in seconds, it costs only 10-20% of the space of the original DB. Just start the test DB from the Snapshot itself! Of course, when the 20% space allocated to the Snapshot LUN is full, then the test DB has reached its end of life, but since it is only a test DB...

Bye
Rick Denoire Received on Sat Jul 26 2003 - 14:17:17 CDT