VERITAS Storage Foundation 4.1 Oracle Administrator's Guide

Chapter 1, VERITAS Storage Foundation for Oracle

Prerelease 8 September 2005, 8:54am VERITAS NetBackup (Optional)

VERITAS NetBackup (Optional)

VERITAS NetBackup provides backup, archive, and restore capabilities for database files and

directories contained on client systems in a client-server network. NetBackup server software

resides on platforms that manage physical backup storage devices. The NetBackup server provides

robotic control, media management, error handling, scheduling, and a repository of all client

backup images.

Administrators can set up schedules for automatic, unattended full and incremental backups. These

backups are managed entirely by the NetBackup server. The administrator can also manually back

up clients. Client users can perform backups, archives, and restores from their client system, and

once started, these operations also run under the control of the NetBackup server.

VERITAS NetBackup, while not a shipped component of VERITAS Storage Foundation for

Oracle, can be purchased separately.

Block-Level Incremental Backup

Block-Level Incremental (BLI) Backup extends the capabilities of NetBackup to back up only

changed data blocks of Oracle database files. BLI Backup accomplishes this backup methodology

using the Storage Checkpoint facility in the VERITAS File System (VxFS) available through

VERITAS Storage Foundation for Oracle. BLI Backup reduces both the time required to complete

a database backup and the amount of data transferred during backups. It also allows more frequent

backups, resulting in more up-to-date backup images. When restoring from backups, the restore

time is increased only by the extra time needed for NetBackup to apply the incremental backups

after a full restore completes. However, frequent incremental backups can speed up the database

recovery by reducing the number of redo logs to apply.

BLI Backup is particularly useful in a database environment where a database can be hundreds of

gigabytes or terabytes. Using traditional backup methods for an offline database backup, any

change in the database file—no matter how small—requires backing up the entire database file.

Using BLI Backup, only modified data blocks need to be backed up.

Note To allow BLI Backups, the database must be on VxFS file systems using the Version 4, 5, or

6 layout, and you must have a valid VERITAS Storage Foundation license. Use the fstyp

-v device command to determine the layout version of your file system. See “Upgrading

From JFS, OnlineJFS, and Earlier VxFS Version Layouts” on page 158 and the

vxupgrade(1M) manual page for more information.

For information on how to install, configure, and use VERITAS NetBackup for Oracle Advanced

BLI Agent to perform Oracle database backups, see VERITAS NetBackup for Oracle Advanced BLI

Agent System Administrator’s Guide.