Veritas FlashSnap Point-In-Time Copy Solutions 5.0 AdministratorÆs Guide, HP-UX 11i v3, First Edition, May 2008

Chapter
6
Database recovery
You can use Storage Checkpoints to implement efficient backup and recovery of
databases that have been laid out on VxFS file systems. A Storage Checkpoint
allows you to roll back an entire database, a tablespace, or a single database file
to the time that the Storage Checkpoint was taken. Rolling back to or restoring
from any Storage Checkpoint is generally very fast because only the changed
data blocks need to be restored.
Storage Checkpoints can also be mounted, allowing regular file system
operations to be performed or secondary databases to be started.
This chapter provides an introduction to using Storage Checkpoints for Storage
Rollback of an Oracle database.
Note: Storage Checkpoints can only be used to restore from logical errors such
as human mistakes or software faults. You cannot use them to restore files after
a disk failure because all the data blocks are on the same physical device. Disk
failure requires restoration of a database from a backup copy of the database
files kept on a separate medium. Combining data redundancy (for example, disk
mirroring) with Storage Checkpoints is recommended for highly critical data to
protect against both physical media failure and logical errors.
Storage Checkpoints require space in the file systems where they are created,
and the space required grows over time as copies of changed file system blocks
are made. If a file system runs out of space, and there is no disk space into which
the file system and any underlying volume can expand, VxFS automatically
removes the oldest Storage Checkpoints if they were created with the removable
attribute.
If available, it is recommended that you use the VxDBA utility to administer
Storage Checkpoints when they are applied to database applications.
For information on Storage Checkpoints, see the Veritas File System
Administrator’s Guide.