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Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> RE: rman oddities
Hi,
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I have
seen some responses and discussions about 'orphaned' backups regarding RMAN
after a recovery has been done. I would like to attempt to clarify why
"old" backups being registered in the catalog are important, and very useful in
a given situation for purposes of clarity.
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Let say
that:
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1)
January 1st, you start using RMAN to backup your database.
2) On
February 1st, your favorite application team asks you to restore the database to
12:00 on January 28th due to some logical corruption of data that was caused by
the application code (or careless user :-) .
3) You
succeed in restoring to noon on 1/28. (Happy with the ease of using
performing this with RMAN, but of course you inform the application owners that
they owe you one.
4) They
thank you, offer their first-born (if you feel so inclined) and return to their
daily routine..... only to discover that the corruption did not start after
12:00 am on the 28th, it actually occurred during a batch load at 3:00 am on the
28th.
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a) In
RMAN terms, your backups up until Feb 1st comprise a set known as "incarnation"
# 1.
b) When
you performed the restore, and obligatory "reset database" in rman after opening
with "reset logs" you started a brand new incarnation... #
2.
c) Now
you have a dilemma because the database (and RMAN believe that the current
database was "born" at 12:00 noon on 1/28 and therefore will not know what to do
with the inevitable request to restore it to 2:20 am on 1/28.... unless! you
understand incarnations.
d)
Since you understand incarnations, you have the option of telling rman to switch
back to incarnation # 1. This allows you tell rman to restore to a new
point in time anywhere between the 1st of January and the 1st of February.
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So...
all backups have a valid place in the never-ending reality that users expect a
request to "just put it back to something else... that it once was..." to be
simple and logical...
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As an
RMAN user, you will not let them down, nor find yourself talking to the overhead
lights in a tongue that nobody can understand. :-)
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<FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>HTH,
<FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>-Ron-
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size=2>-----Original Message-----From: root_at_fatcity.com
[mailto:root_at_fatcity.com]On Behalf Of Koivu, LisaSent:
Monday, December 03, 2001 1:27 PMTo: Multiple recipients of list
ORACLE-LSubject: rman oddities
Hi Ruth, thanks so much for
responding.
Yes, I wrote the scripts to do an arclog
backup delete. I'm concerned about the arclogs hanging around after a
restore and taking up disk space, along with unnecessarily inflating the size
of my backup files. (I'm testing backup to disk right now)
It's more of a nice to know, not
necessary. I'm seeing some weird stuff that I didn't expect and the
monkey in me wants to know why... No, not the baby :) Here's some
other odd behavior I've seen:
1. Instance failure during a backup
leaves the rman files intact but the backup itself is not reflected in the
catalog. The database recovers nicely from this since no tablespaces are
in hotbackup mode (yesssssssss) The end result is "orphan" rman files
that the catalog knows nothing about.
2. Initially these files are created
the size of all datafiles combined. As the backup progresses, the size
of the files shrink down considerably. For example, I allocate 3
channels to disk and setsize to 2GB, but the files start out at 1.5GB and
shrink down to ~500 MB. I wonder if that behavior happens on
tape? Anyone? I'll be able to test this later this week.
3. Can restore and recovery
really be this easy? Sheesh
Thanks again for your response. And
list, please correct me if I am wrong on any of this.
yours in Monkeying Around,
Lisa
-----Original Message----- <FONT
face=Arial size=1>From: Ruth
Gramolini [SMTP:rgramolini_at_tax.state.vt.us] <FONT face=Arial
size=1>Sent: Monday, December
03, 2001 1:17 PM <FONT face=Arial
size=1>To: <FONT face=Arial size=1>Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <FONT face=Arial size=1>Subject: <FONT face=Arial size=1>Re: rman restore & arclogsLisa,
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