Veritas FlashSnap Point-In-Time Copy Solutions 5.0.1 Administrators Guide, HP-UX 11i v3, First Edition, November 2009

Note: It is assumed that you have already prepared the volumes containing the

file systems for the datafiles to be backed up as described in the example.

See “About setting up volumes for instant snapshots” on page 27.

For an Oracle database, it is not necessary to create snapshots of the volumes

containing the file systems for the redo log volumes or archived logs.

If the database is configured on volumes in a cluster-shareable disk group, it is

assumed that the primary host for the database is the master node for the cluster.

If the primary host is not also the master node, all VxVM operations on shared

disk groups must be performed on the master node.

The procedure in this section is designed to minimize copy-on-write operations

that can impact system performance. You can also implement this procedure on

a single host by omitting steps 5 through 8 and 10 through 13 that split, deport,

reimport and rejoin the snapshot disk group.

To make an off-host backup of an online database

On the primary host, add one or more snapshot plexes to the volume using

this command:

# vxsnap -g volumedg addmir volume [nmirror=N] \

[alloc=storage_attributes]

By default, one snapshot plex is added unless you specify a number using the

nmirror attribute. For a backup, you should usually only require one plex.

You can specify storage attributes (such as a list of disks) to determine where

the plexes are created.

Suspend updates to the volumes:

■ DB2 provides the write suspend command to temporarily suspend I/O

activity for a database. As the DB2 database administrator, use a script

such as that shown in the example.

See “Script to suspend I/O for a DB2 database” on page 88.

Note that to allow recovery from any backups taken from snapshots, the

database must be in LOGRETAIN RECOVERY mode.

■ Oracle supports online backup by temporarily suspending updates to the

datafiles of the tablespaces, provided that the database is running in

archive mode and the tablespaces are online. As the Oracle database

administrator, put each tablespace into hot backup mode using a script

such as that shown in the example.

See “Script to put an Oracle database into hot backup mode” on page 87.

Online database backup

Making an off-host backup of an online database