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Best Practices for Oracle 11g Backup and Recovery using RMAN and Dell EqualLogic Snapshots

Table 2 summarizes the methods used in this paper to test and compare Oracle database backup and

recovery solutions.

Table 2 – Oracle Backup and Recovery Solutions

Methodology Description

Oracle RMAN Full

Backup

Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) is a commonly used utility supplied by

Oracle for performing backup and recovery of Oracle databases.

Administrators can use this utility to perform disk-to-tape or disk-to-disk

backups. RMAN is easy to use, and provides a wide range of flexible

features for scheduling backup operations.

Oracle RMAN

Incremental

Backup

RMAN backup of data files can be full or incremental. A full backup

consists of every used block of the data file. An incremental backup

consists of only the data that changed since the previous incremental

backup. The size of the incremental backups is usually smaller when

compared to full backups.

EqualLogic

Snapshots

An EqualLogic snapshot preserves a copy of the contents of a volume at a

point in time. Creating snapshots on a regular basis enables protection

from data loss due to human error, viruses, or database corruption.

Snapshots are created instantaneously with no performance impact.

Administrators can use snapshots to offload the backup operation to a

different server, thereby reducing system resource usage on the

production database servers. Snapshots are also very useful for preserving

point-in-time copies of the production database.

User-Managed

Backup

In this method, RMAN is not the primary tool used for performing backup

and recovery. Instead, operating system or storage tools are used to copy

the raw content of the database files.

Oracle FLASHBACK

DATABASE

Point-in-time recovery traditionally involves restoring the database files

from tape or disk and then applying the redo logs to complete the

recovery to the desired RPO. The Oracle FLASHBACK DATABASE feature

eliminates the need to restore the database from tape or disk, thus

providing a more efficient way for completing database point-in-time

recovery.