Re: Fssnap and Oracle 9i

Joel Garry wrote:

> "Howard J. Rogers" <hjr_at_dizwell.com> wrote in message
> news:<4167074d$0$23893$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au>...
>> Roel Toledo wrote:
>>
>> > Id' like to solicit opinions from other DBA's in this forum about
>> > Solaris 9's online backup utility fssnap and using it to backup an
>> > Oracle database server. Do the database instances need to be shut
>> > down first before issuing fssnap? In the event that fssnap backup is
>> > made while the database is up and running, can the backups be safely
>> > restored without a problem?
>>
>> I don't know fssnap, so I could be wrong. But I do know Oracle's internal
>> shenanigans that get stuffed by O/S backups done incorrectly, so I'll bet
>> I'm not.
>
>

http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-9-49622-1&searchclause=fssnap
>
>>
>> The instances would indeed need to be shutdown before taking your backup.
>> The problem is simply a generic one: an operating system utility cannot
>> know the significance of the first block in a data file's header. Nor can
>> it understand that 16 512 byte blocks need to be copied in synchronism
>> before you can say you've backed up one Oracle block. Only an
>> Oracle-aware utility can do that (such as RMAN). Therefore, if the
>> instances are still running, you risk fractured blocks and inappropriate
>> data file headers.
>
> Isn't that what hot backups are for?

Joel: could you try to note what the actual topic of conversation here is, before joining in? The OP wrote, "I'd like to solicit opinions about fssnap".

*My* comments are addressing his question.

What are your comments doing?

Yes, we know that Oracle has a hot backup capability. But the question was actually, how good is fssnap.

HJR Received on Fri Oct 15 2004 - 18:01:43 CDT