Why restore before recover? The new Oracle 10g Backup Strategy

Delivering Oracle 10g R2 Administration Workshop II we had a closer look at the new recommended backup strategy for Oracle.

With Oracle 10g R2 we can recover datafile copies like we recover the real datafiles.
This gives us the oportunity to recover the entire database without having to restore it from backup first.
Which of course saves very valuable time in case of a disaster.

Here is how you could do it:

– use a “flash recovery area” to store everything needed for recovering, such as:
– an image copy of the entire database
– one incremental backup of the database
– the archived redo logs which have been created since the last incremental backup

The flash recovery area is a location on disk which you specify by the parameter db_recovery_file_dest. It can be changed dynamically without having to restart.
With the also dynamically changeable parameter db_recovery_file_dest_size you can limit the amount of disk space you want to use for this area.

Once you use it rman will create backupserts and image copies of datafiles there by default.

– create an image copy of the entire database:

RMAN > BACKUP INCREMENTAL LEVEL 1 FOR RECOVER OF COPY DATABASE;

This will first search for a parent image copy to recover. If there is none yet, it will create one.
If there is an image copy of the database already, it will create an incremental level 1 backup.

– after you have create the first incremental backup for your image copy you can update these image copies of the datafiles by applying the incremental backup to them.

RMAN > RECOVER COPY OF DATABASE;

This is what you do every night.
Then you will have a copy of the database which is always
at least at the level of last night.

In case of a disaster you can now tell rman to just change the locations of the datafiles in the controlfile to the image copies by issuing the following:

RMAN > SWITCH DATABASE TO COPY;
You can only do this in MOUNT.
– Now you are already where you were last night and you only have to recover what has changed since last incremental update without having to restore the database at first.

This is a very handy way to perform recovery.
We were able to switch datafiles to copies before 10g already, but could not incrementally update them.

connect lutz hartmann as sysdba



What do you have to do to be a good DBA ?

From time to time, people on the Oracle forum, or comp.databases.oracle.server newsgroup ask the question: “What do you have to do to be a good DBA ?”

Joel Goodman and Harald van Breederode – a pair of highly skilled and very experienced instructors at Oracle University – recently asked themselves a slightly different question: “How do you have to change to stay a good DBA in the modern environment ?”

Historically, the Oracle DBA skill set was database-centric, usually limited to software installation, database creation, day-to-day maintenance, performance monitoring, tuning and most of all, backup and  recovery. Since  the arrival of Oracle 10g,  the  technology within  the DBA arena has changed, due to the increase in automated monitoring, tuning and manageability
features within  the Oracle  kernel,  and  also expanded  into  areas  that were  formerly  the  responsibility of OS, storage, and network administrators. Due to these changes, the knowledge required by the typical Oracle DBA has increased, requiring additional skills and in some cases job responsibilities. This shift from the traditional DBA, which we call DBA 1.0, toward the mod-
ern, post Oracle 9i DBA, which we call DBA 2.0, has occurred gradually over the past two major releases of the Oracle Database Server.

This expansion of the multi-skilled roles, DBA or otherwise, is countered by the ever-increasing strict partitioning of job roles and access restrictions in financial environments. It’s been two years since I was at a client or on a job where I had actually had any access to the OS for example or had any dba level access to the database (in theory at least). ..

Customers Select Oracle® Exadata for Extreme Performance of Data Warehouse and OLTP Applications

News Facts

Customers across the globe have chosen Oracle® Exadata to deliver extreme performance for their data warehousing and online transaction processing (OLTP) environments.

The Oracle Exadata product family includes Oracle Database Machine and Oracle Exadata Storage Server with Oracle Exadata Storage Server software.

Announced on September 15, 2009, Oracle Exadata V2 was developed with Sun Microsystems.

The following organizations are among those that have selected Oracle Exadata: Amtrak, Allegro Group, Automobile Association of the UK, Banca Transilvania, CTC, Garanti Bank, Generale de Sante, Giant Eagle, HISCOM (Hokuriku Coca Cola), Integrated Health Information Systems Pte Ltd/National Healthcare Group, Singapore, KnowledgeBase Marketing, Loyalty Partner Solutions, M-Tel, MTN Group, Nagase, NS Solutions, NTT Data, OK Systems, Philippines Savings Bank, Research in Motion, SoftBank Mobile, Screwfix, Thomson Reuters, True Corporation Plc, TUI and Yamazaki Baking.

Oracle Exadata V2 Increases Oracle’s Performance and Price-Performance Leadership

The Exadata Hybrid Columnar Compression in Oracle Exadata V2 delivers industry leading 10x average table compression for data warehouse data; with corresponding increase in table scan performance.

This latest version also features Exadata Smart Flash Cache, the industry’s first intelligent integration of flash with a database, delivering over 1 million I/Os per second and enabling extreme OLTP; plus consolidation of data warehouse and OLTP workloads onto the same system.

Boost Productivity – The application includes Task Optimization tools that allow utilities to reduce the number of steps and associated “clicks” in their most common processes – improving efficiency and ensuring consistency in task execution. The Task Optimization tools allow utilities to model their business processes, including configuring their own user interfaces, to suit their unique work processes and needs, while ensuring all data entered is properly validated for accuracy. This enables the system to be even more intuitive and user friendly, helping to reduce required training and improve productivity and efficiency.

With Oracle Exadata V2, Oracle Exadata Storage Servers now deliver 50 Gigabytes per second of raw, uncompressed I/O bandwidth; approximately 5x greater than major competitors and 2-3x better on a price/performance basis.

Supporting Quotes

“Banca Transilvania has a long history and strong partnership with Oracle. We expect that the 30 times performance improvement of the Oracle Database Machine will enable faster access to business information and will allow us to launch new products exactly when the market needs them, which will be a direct benefit to our customers.” — Marius Ursuti, Director IT, Banca Transilvania

“We saw significant improvements in the tests we did on Exadata. The minimum improvement was 27x with an average of 470x improvement on the queries we tested compared to our current system. This was achieved with no tuning and after removing all indexes. In fact, eliminating indexes is going to save us on half the disk capacity.” — Mark Win, Director, Business Intelligence, Integrated Health Information Systems Pte Ltd/National Healthcare Group, Singapore

“We chose Oracle Exadata because they could deliver a complete system that is simple and fast to implement, very cost-effective, and scalable as our data warehouse grows,” said Suwicha Pornawalai, Director of Information Technology (Application), True Corporation Plc. “The Oracle Database Machine and Exadata Storage Servers can help us tap deeper into our customer database in a cost efficient manner. In doing so, we are able to better understand our customers and develop innovative products and services that best fit their usage behavior. The Oracle Database Machine helps us enhance customers’ satisfaction with a 360-degree view of customers across our five businesses: TrueMove, TrueOnline, TrueVisions, TrueMoney, and TrueLife.”

“TUI chose the Sun Oracle Database Machine because it was the only platform that would meet both our needs for all of our database requirements, including OLTP, as well as be the best platform for a high performance data warehouse. The performance and scalability of the Sun Oracle Database Machine will allow our business users to provide all answers for complex queries which will result in a higher service level and a more efficient unique selling proposition for our business.” — Eli Lysen, Senior Manager ICT, TUI

“This is further proof that Oracle Exadata has revolutionized the data warehouse industry,” said Willie Hardie, vice president of Database Product Marketing, Oracle. “V2 with its intelligent Exadata Smart Flash Cache will do the same for our customers OLTP applications.”

(Oracle OpenWorld, San Francisco, Calif. – October 13, 2009)