CERN/IT/DB

Oracle backup and recovery strategy

Catherine Delamare /IT DB

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AGENDA
Why plan backups? Overview of backups

Backup implementation in IT/DB

Export/Import Recovery

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Why plan backups?

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Why plan backups?

Hardware never fails Oracle never makes a mistake Users never make mistakes Programmers never make mistakes Physicists never make mistakes Database administrators (DBAs) never make mistakes

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Why plan backups?

The only insurance you have against failures causing loss of data:
Human errors Hardware failures Power failures Software errors

DBAs job security!

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Why plan backups?

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Overview of backups
Physical backups
protect against global failure Cold backups : database needs to be stopped Hot backups : database keeps on running

Logical backups (or exports)

protect against deletion of (a) table(s) can be run by the user himself

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Definition

ARCHIVELOG Mode or not? (1/3)

All changes are kept in archived logs The more activity, the more archived logs Central db: 600 logs per week (30M each=18G transactions volume per week)

Advantages of ARCHIVELOG mode

Complete recovery up to the last committed transaction before the failure (point-in-time recovery) Mandatory for mission-critical applications Pre-requisite to run hot backups

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ARCHIVELOG Mode or not? (2/3)

Sunday Friday CRASH 1 2 3 4 5

BACKUP

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ARCHIVELOG Mode or not? (3/3)

ARCHIVELOG mode implications:

Additional overhead (even more overhead during online backup) Oracle hangs if the archived disk fills up Archived logs must be kept in a safe place
Tape facilities implied

More work for the DBA:

Space management Log files tracking

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Offline backup (COLD)

Database must be down
Backup of all datafiles, redo log files and control files Disk space needed

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Benefits of offline backup

Best guarantee for a restartable database (Oracle recommends a weekly cold backup)
Quick recovery (by replacing all datafiles, redo log files and control files by their backup version)

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Drawbacks of offline backup

Database must be down Loss of data between backup and failure if not using ARCHIVELOG mode Corruption may not be recognized! Might not backup everything: Backup scripts must be often checked and tested!

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Online (hot) backup

Meaningful only if database is operating in ARCHIVELOG mode: if not, hot backups are useless for recovery Database must be up and open
Do a favor to users, schedule it during off hours

The unit of an online backup is a tablespace

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Benefits of online (hot) backup

Database remains available

Control over what to backup and when

Not all tablespaces need to be backed up at the same time

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Drawbacks of online (hot) backup

Setup and administration is more complex Leading cause of recovery problems

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Online backup procedure

ALTER TABLESPACE tsp BEGIN BACKUP Copy/Backup all datafiles in the tablespace ALTER TABLESPACE tsp END BACKUP ALTER SYSTEM SWITCH LOGFILE Backup archived log files ALTER DATABASE BACKUP CONTROLFILE to filespec

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Backups implementation
(1/3)
Most production databases run in ARCHIVELOG mode Archived redo logs stored on two different tape devices Home-grown scripts perform
depending on the service:
daily/weekly cold/hot backup + daily full export

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Backups implementation
(2/3)
On mission-critical systems :
Shutdown the oracle database Detach the mirrors Restart the database on one side => service

interruption of the order of 1-6 minutes

Backup the frozen side Reattach the mirrors

E.g.:central cluster, cryogenics, remedy,tape

management and radio-frequency databases

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Backups implementation
(3/3)
On the central database cluster.. The 2 nodes synchronize a clean rundown of the common database
Node A detaches the database mirrors and restarts DB Tells node B to restart as well Performs a cold backup onto disks Reattaches the mirrors

Service interruption: 6 minutes

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Oracle EXPORT/IMPORT
The Export and Import Oracle utilities generate a file with a logical copy of the data and application Export and Import are useful to recover specific items lost due to user errors Export and Import help migration to different releases of the Oracle RDBMS

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EXPORT/IMPORT(contd)
Export and Import support object types Export writes object type definitions and all associated data to the dump file Import then re-creates these items from the dump file The definition statements for derived types are exported, same applies to OIDs

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EXPORT (logical)
Database must be up and running Export reads the database using SQL
Export file contains create and insert statements

Export provides a Read consistent view of the database

Changes made after export begins are not included

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Benefits of export
Easy to recover individual items Portable:
can be used to move data from one machine to another useful in a heterogeneous environment

Unlike backup, export identifies physical data block corruption since it performs a full table scan while exporting a table

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Drawbacks of export
Does not provide point in time recovery

Export/Import are usually long processes.To improve speed:

import with ROWS=Y INDEX=N to restore data then import with ROWS=N and INDEX=Y to build indexes

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Export/import examples
Export of a full database (from a DBA): EXP FULL=Y FILE=fullexp.dmp LOG=fullexp.log
Export of a specific schema: EXP USER/PASSWORD TABLES=(RUN1,RUN2) FILE=runs12.dmp LOG=runs12.log

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Recovery considerations
Media recovery:
Done in response to a RECOVERY command Has to be done by a DBA after identifying the appropriate recovery action depending on the failure (datafile, tablespace, database)

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NOARCHIVELOG mode
Only offline backup (or export) can be used What to do:
Restore all copies of datafiles, control files and redo log files startup the database

Recovery in

You are back in the status when the backup (export) were run

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Recovery in ARCHIVELOG mode

Only way to perform the point in time recovery What to do:

Restore from backup the damaged Oracle files Apply Redo log changes
Database recovery Tablespace recovery Datafile recovery

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Benefits of recovery
Database recovery can be complete or not:
recover database (complete) recover database until time 2001-0710:10:05:00 recover database until cancel recovery of TABLESPACE or DATAFILE can only be complete

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Implications of recovery
Database is not open to the users It can take a long time depending on the number of redo log files to be applied. Must have ALL required files (datafiles, archived redo log files).

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SUMMARY
5 real cases of Oracle recovery have been performed in the past 7 years (Successful) Many items have been recovered from export files to repair accidental deletion of items WHO WANTS TO TEST NEXT?