RE: Hot Backups...am I off base??

>Another "DBA" (ex-System Admin I might add)
>recommends 1. making a hot backup of the database, 2. make a system
>backup, 3. then DELETE the hot backup we just created relying only on
>the system backup with a verify option. He say this is good for
>housekeeping on the system. I highly opposed this scenario. There
>is plenty of space available on the system for the backup files so
>that is not an issue. I'd rather have both.. the system backup and the
>hot backup on disk drives. Am I off my rocker not to rely solely
>on the system backup? Would any of you use this strategy in
>production??? Thanks in advance!

Val,
No, you are not off your rocker. My nearly 20 years of experience in data processing has reinforced that you can't have too many forms of backup. Any single backup can fail -- media can fail or be damaged or whatever. Our hotbackup files get written off to tape automatically each day, but I don't get rid of the backup files until they are rewritten by the next hotbackup run. The space for the hotbackups is set aside just for that purpose.
I always want at least 2 safety nets on critical data. By the way, a full nightly export would be a good additional net.

Peace,
Larry Holder
University of Tennessee at Martin Received on Sun Aug 06 2000 - 20:55:37 CDT