Re: Backup and Recovery and DR - RMAN vs. NOT

Paula,

To me the key questions are what the requirements are and what meets those requirements. The managers must make decisions based on the advice they receive from their people and the vendors. Sometimes the hardware vendors point them in a different direction than we DBAs would prefer. Here are some questions to ponder:

• Has the current configuration been tested by recovering a backup? This will especially needed when the junior system administrator takes over. If the current sys admin is leaving, he may lighten up and more freely discuss alternatives.
• Are you saying they are backing up by tablespaces. That strikes me as a little unusual. You might investigate that a little more fully.
• One variation that might work in your environment is to configure one server as a backup server. A complete database copy is made by breaking the mirror. Then that database is mounted on the backup server and an RMAN copy is made from there. That reduces the licensing the Networker Oracle Agent to a single server.
• To play the devil's advocate, you are correct that RMAN offers more flexibility and options than their current setup, but then again is that flexibility required? What are their requirements?
• Backups are a conservative affair. Once an organization has a workable configuration, it is difficult to justify a change, especially if that costs money. However, when the environment changes that is a good time to change the setup, or at least offer alternatives. Plus then you'll understand the organization better and what discussion points will be more compelling.

Just some thoughts, good luck.
Dennis Williams

On 5/2/06, Paula Stankus <paulastankus_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Guys,
>
> My system admin. has a very strong personality and he is very
> intelligent. However, he also is leaving in about a year and his junior is
> not at the same level. I just started and they have setup scripts to do
> alter tablespace to back tablespaces up. In order to decrease their total
> window they have decided to alter tablespace to begin backup, split mirror,
> end tablespace backup and resilver. They have bought a large SAN to enable
> them to do this. I believe Networker Version 7.3 writes out clones at the
> same time as original tapes. So they will do that as well so that they get
> their clones for DR faster.
>
> I am definitely used to using RMAN and using Networker solely as the Media
> Management layer for writing directly to tape. However, I do see the
> benefits of writing to disk and having some database backups on disk. They
> also are not interested in purchasing the Oracle agent from networker for
> the 5 boxes.
>
> I know that they are against Differential backups and RMAN as (a) they
> think both will complicate the backup process with little payoff and (b) I
> believe they like controlling thrings through Networker (which of couse
> could still be done). I am thinking the advantages (especially if a great
> deal of data is static) with RMAN is:
>
> -easier and more organized tracking of backups (but again, Networker does
> this as well)
> -ability to do backups at a more granular level with differential backups,
> block-level backups and recoveries, read-only tablespace backups solutions
> available
> -ability to write directly to tape and restore/recover directly from tape
> in parallel.
> -ability to execute backups/restores/recoveries independently to a larger
> extent than having to call the system admin. if we need to go back farther
> than a day.
>
> I am thinking that RMAN would be a good bet. Does anyone have any good
> ideas for convincing folks that this is a good option or should I just "go
> with the flow".
>
> Thanks,
> Paula
>
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