VERITAS Storage Foundation 4.1 Oracle Administrator's Guide

How VERITAS Database FlashSnap Works Prerelease 8 September 2005, 8:55am
198 VERITAS Storage Foundation for Oracle Administrator’s Guide
How VERITAS Database FlashSnap Works
You can use VERITAS Database FlashSnap to implement point-in-time copy solutions for
enterprise databases. Database FlashSnap offers you a flexible way to efficiently manage multiple
point-in-time copies of your data, and reduce resource contention on your business-critical servers.
Database FlashSnap allows database administrators to create a consistent copy of a database
without root privileges by creating a snapshot. A snapshot copy of the database is referred to as a
database snapshot.
You can use a database snapshot on the same host as the production database or on a secondary host
sharing the same storage. A database snapshot can be used for off-host processing applications,
such as backup, data warehousing, and decision-support queries. When the snapshot is no longer
needed, the database administrator can import the original snapshot back to the primary host and
resynchronize the snapshot to the original database volumes. Database FlashSnap also allows you
to resynchronize your original database volumes from the data in the snapshot if the original
volumes become corrupted. This is referred to as reverse resynchronization.
Database FlashSnap can significantly reduce the time it takes to backup your database, increase the
availability of your production database, and still maintain your production database’s
performance.
Note To use Database FlashSnap, you must have VERITAS Storage Foundation Enterprise
Edition on all systems on which you intend to use Database FlashSnap.
To use Database FlashSnap, you must first configure the volumes used by the database. See
“Preparing Hosts and Storage for Database FlashSnap” on page 204, for more information.
Typical Problems Database FlashSnap Solves
Database FlashSnap is designed to enable you to use database snapshots to overcome the following
types of problems encountered in enterprise database environments:
◆ In many companies, there is a clear separation between the roles of system administrators and
database administrators. Creating database snapshots typically requires superuser (root)
privileges, privileges that database administrators do not usually have.
◆ In some companies, database administrators are granted root privileges, but managing storage
is typically not central to their job function or their core competency.
◆ Creating database snapshots is a complex process, especially in large configurations where
thousands of volumes are used for the database. One mistake can render the snapshots useless.
Because it does not require root privileges, Database FlashSnap overcomes these obstacles by
enabling database administrators to create consistent snapshots of the database more easily. The
snapshots can be utilized for repetitive use.