Backup Strategies
Backup Strategy Considerations
From a data backup perspective, perhaps the
best backup strategy is to have critical data, systems
and resources backed up to an alternate location.
On-site and remote storage options are plentiful and
varied, so examine the options carefully.
Backup Strategy Considerations
Some of the issues to examine include:
1.location of storage resources, particularly how
close they are to the organization's primary
location;
2.on-site versus hosted storage options;
3.Amount of network bandwidth for large data
downloads and system recoveries in an emergency;
Backup Strategy Considerations
5.Criticality of the data and systems being backed up, so
your organization can access them on a priority basis in an
emergency;
6.Frequency of data backups, especially as stated by
recovery point objectives;
7. Multiple data storage facilities, so that data can be backed
up to two or more storage locations;
8.Data encryption technologies to further protect data;
9. Secure Access methodologies;
10. Periodic testing and verification that backed up data and
systems are operational and accessible;
Disaster Recovery Plan
A Full Stack DR is an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
(OCI) disaster recovery orchestration and management
service that provides comprehensive disaster recovery
capabilities for all layers of an application stack, including
infrastructure, middleware, database, and application.
A Disaster Recovery (DR) plan is an automated DR
workflow (a DR runbook) created by Full Stack DR to
perform disaster recovery for all the resources in the
primary DR protection group.
DR Plans
A DR plan consists of a sequence of plan groups, and
each of these plan groups consists of plan steps.
When creating a DR plan, the optimal sequence of
plan groups and steps within those groups are
automatically determined by Full Stack DR.
When a DR plan is executed, plan groups in the DR
plan execute sequentially, and plan steps in each
group execute in parallel.
Types of Backups
Database backups can be classified in different ways.
There are really two types of Oracle database
backups:
Offline Backups (sometimes called ‘cold’ or
‘consistent’ backups)
Online Backups (sometimes called ‘hot’ or
‘inconsistent’ backups)
Types of Backups
“Offline” (or “Cold” or “Consistent”) backups are
those performed when the database has been
closed and is not accepting traffic.
“Online” (also called “Hot” or “Inconsistent”)
backups are those that are performed while the
database is open and accessible to other users.
Oracle Database Offline Backups
With offline backups, since the database is
not open to users, no changes can occur while the
backup is taken. This is very good, as we can
ensure that our backup didn’t miss anything.
Types of Backups
Offline backups are the most easy to
understand because we’re really just copying files.
This means that offline backups can be performed
by any number of tools.
Regular OS utilities or scripts that makes a copy
of the Oracle database files manually (datafiles,
online redo log files).
Types of Backups
Any utility that can create a snapshot of the whole filesystem.
Cloud vendor specific filesystem snapshotting tools.
The Oracle RMAN Backup command.
Restoring a cold backup is equally simple, we just need to put the files
back in the right place (or restore the entire file system), then start the
database server back up again.
Since there was no user activity during the backup process, no recovery
step is required since all data is consistent.
Types of Backups
Oracle Database Online Backups
Online backups are more tricky, so should only be performed
with the RMAN tool. They also require the database to be
configured in ARCHIVELOG mode.
While an online backup has the great benefit that it does not
require the database to be closed while backup is generated, the
recovery process is a little more complicated.
Since data can be changing while the backup process is running,
after data restoration we are required to run a recovery step. The
recovery step reapplies changes that occurred while the backup
was being taken, using information stored in the archived log
files. This is required to make the restored database consistent.
Backup Methods in RMAN
1.Full Backup :
A Full Backup consists of creating an identical copy
of all our files, folders, and other forms of data. Full
backups are typically implemented initially to get a
complete snapshot of your company’s data, and
performed again periodically as needed.
1.Full Backup
Pros: This backup provides the best protection
for your data. No matter what happens to your
hardware, you know you’ll have a complete copy
of all the company information you need.
Cons: Because these backups replicate so much
information, they require a lot of storage space,
time, and financial investment to complete.
2.Incremental Backup
Incremental backups, only backs up the
information that has changed since the last time,
we performed a backup of any kind. If we had a full
backup on Friday, an incremental backup on
Monday would only record the data that changed
over the weekend.
2. Incremental Backup
Pros: These backups require far less time and storage to create
more compact copies of data.
Cons: The time you save in making the backup is added to the
time necessary to restore the data. If you want to review the files
that were backed up incrementally on Monday, you’d first need
to restore the full backup from Friday and move on from there.
3. Differential Backup
Differential backups copy over only the information that
has changed since the last full backup.
If you followed up Monday’s incremental backup with a
differential backup on Tuesday,
it would create a replica of any adjusted data from the
full backup on Friday.
3. Differential Backup
Pros: When compared to incremental backups, this form
requires less time to restore and can offer you different
versions of the same files.
Cons: Because you’re backing up more data, these
backups can consume far more storage space over time
in comparison to incremental backups.
Backup Methods Comparison
Feature Recovery Manager User-Managed
Closed database Supported. Requires instance to be mounted. Supported.
backups
Open database backups Supported. No need to use BEGIN/END BACKUP statements. Supported. Must use BEGIN/END BACKUP statements.
Incremental backups Supported. Not supported.
Corrupt block detection Supported. Identifies corrupt blocks and logs Not supported.
in V$DATABASE_BLOCK_CORRUPTION.
Automatic specification Supported. Establishes the name and locations of all files to be Not supported. Files to be backed up must be located
of files to include in a backed up (whole database, tablespaces, data files, control and copied manually.
backup files, and so on).
Backup and Recovery Strategies
1. Data Recovery Strategy determines Backup
Strategy
2. Planning Data Recovery Strategy
3. Planning Backup Strategy
4. Validating Data Recovery Strategy
