What is best solution for backup ?

Question

Our environment consisted of RAC (2 nodes). we are trying to back up our database using RMAN with NetBackup.
we also have other different databases need to be backed up.
In RAC case, what is best solution for backing up the database ?
As I mentioned above, we are using RMAN for backup our RAC with NetBackup.
Actually, the RMAN is not simple utility for me.
Is there any other way to back up the database in our situation without rman.
I need some advice from all of you.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Hi Justin
There are many possible ways to backup your database. You must decide the one that suits your environment.
Following is the list of options that you have.
1. Take Online Backups
Issue this command to freeze tablespaces
SQL> ALTER TABLESPACE tblspcname BEGIN BACKUP;
Copy all the files belonging to this tablespace to your backup location using OS commands.
Release the tablespace by using this command.
SQL> ALTER TABLESPACE tblspcname END BACKUP;
To find the data files belonging to a particular tablespace you can issue this statement
SQL>SELECT file_name, tablespace_name FROM dba_data_files ORDER BY tablespace_name;
2. If your db size is not BIG then you can take logical backups. Logical Backups can be FULL or incremental. In 10g you can have filesets to spilit your logical backups in more than one file with specified sizes. (By Logical Backups I mean EXPORT).
To take export for example issue this command.
ORACLE_HOME\bin\exp file=fullpath+filename.dmp log=fullpath+logfilename.log FULL=Y userid=system/pwd@dbconnectstring
To get full list of export parameters type
ORACLE_HOME\bin\exp help=y
3. RMAN (Strongly recommended) but you ruled out its possibility so I won't elaborate on that.
4. COLD BACKUP
To perform this type of backup you will need to shutdown your database by issuing this command.
SQL>SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATE;
(On RAC you will need to shutdown all the instances before copying files to the backup location).
Use OS copy command to copy files to backup location.
(This method is not recommended as it will flush your SGA and your client will complain about performance for the first few hours).
Let me know if you need more details.
Hopefully this helps.
Rgds
Adnan