RE: RMAN: I don't trust it

Michael,  

I use it. I trust it. Oracle support is there when needed.  

When you say "While I can get RMAN to work for most simple, basic and predictable recovery scenarios, true
recovery situations are never so neat and clean."  

Just what do you mean? Loss of individual tablespaces? What?  

To be fair, I would suggest that you create a test database, and use Rman to perform backup and recovery operations on it. Try and beat the product so it doesn't work for you. You'll be surprised.  

Once you see how it works, I think you'll realize that it has matured into a good product.  

Hope this helps.  

Tom Mercadante
Oracle Certified Professional

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 5:04 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

As a longtime Oracle DBA who has used many products, including RMAN, I find myself
guilty of a paradoxical mistrust of RMAN, dating back from the time when Oracle has tried
several products, including integration with Legato and other hardware/software backup vendors,
without a consistent direction. In the little I've used RMAN, it seems quite complex and kludgy.
Even the nomenclature and commands used by Oracle within the product are a challenge to learn.

While I can get RMAN to work for most simple, basic and predictable recovery scenarios, true
recovery situations are never so neat and clean. This is not an advertisement for any particular
product, but we've had great success in my shop with a product called SQL*Backtrack from BMC.
I've also heard that Veritas makes a good product, but I've not used it.

>From what I've seen of RMAN, at least so far, I feel far more confident with
the home-cooked scripts
I've been using for years.

Any comments, or other interesting experiences?

Perhaps we can do a list poll of favorite/preferred backup software?

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Author: Mercadante, Thomas F
  INET: NDATFM_at_labor.state.ny.us

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