RE: Some Dataguard is good, lots more must be better?

>>>and 42 seconds. If it is sharing a filesystem with a bunch
>>>of other databases which are running just fine, how do I
>>>load up the old files for database 42, if the snapshot is at
>>>the filesystem level?

Lawie,

  Thanks for the questions. It is an interesting discussion. Well, the answer is that the technology is called Filesystem Snapshots (been done before, VRTS etc), but our implemention ( not released yet) supports directory snapshots. And like I said, potentially hundreds of thousands of them. These filesystems can grow to tremendous size (16TB currently, Pbtye next) and have a CVM under them that grows online as well. So the model is, create a directory (db_file_create_dest OMF) in a filesystem called DB42 that contains all database 42's files and snapshot it whenever you want. There are any number of other directories in the same filesystem--no matter.

  Every snapshot is a new generation of snapshot 0, if you will. That is, every directory is in essence a level zero snapshot. If you want to exchange the read/write snapshot from 0 to say, snapshot number 42, it is a snapshot CLI command. Now, bear in mind that all other snapshots are children of snapshot 0, so their value is dimunished once you start snapshoting the new writable generation...note, however, that the new level 0 (writable) can also be snapshotted...many times.

  It is interesting technology, and most importantly applicable to much more than just databases since 85% of all data is unstructured after all.

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