Config to take Snapshot of archivelogs after Oracle Online Backup? [ Edited ]

[#1]

Hi,

how to configure Snapmanager to take a snapshot of the archivelog destination after an Oracle Online backup?

Here is my current config:

SNAME=T11G
SNAP_TIMESTAMP_ONLY=Y
VOLUMES=flr10:t11g_1,t11g_2,t11g_5
SNAPVAULT_VOLUMES=flr10:t11g_1,t11g_2,t11g_5
NTAP_USERS=flr10:root/XXX;flr-rbg04:root/XXX
NTAP_PWD_PROTECTION=Y
TRANSPORT=HTTP
PORT=80
LOG_NUM=30
NTAP_SNAPSHOT_RETENTIONS=daily:2
NTAP_SNAPVAULT_RETENTIONS=daily:30
NTAP_SNAPSHOT_RETENTION_AGE=2
NTAP_SNAPVAULT_RETENTION_AGE=30
NTAP_SNAPVAULT_UPDATE=Y
NTAP_SNAPVAULT_WAIT=60
SC_AGENT=t11g:9090
APP_NAME=oracle
APP_IGNORE_ERROR=N
ORACLE_DATABASES=T11G:orat11g
SQLPLUS_CMD="/oracle/T11G/11202/bin/sqlplus"
CNTL_FILE_BACKUP_DIR=/oracle/T11G/backup
ORA_TEMP=/tmp
ARCHIVE_LOG_ONLY=N
ORACLE_HOME=/oracle/T11G/11202
ARCHIVE_LOG_ENABLE=Y
ARCHIVE_LOG_RETENTION=2
ARCHIVE_LOG_DIR=/oracle/T11G/arch
ARCHIVE_LOG_EXT=arc

Currently all 3 volumes t11g_1 / 2 / 5 are snapshoted at the same time! Therefore not enought redo information is available during recovery after reverted back to these snapshots!!!

Best regards,

Christain

[#2]

Hi Christian,

The recommended steps for oracle which SMO follows are:

1. oracle begin backup mode

2. snapshot oracle data volume

3. oracle end backup mode

4. switch logs or archive log current

5. snapshot archive logs volume

Snap Creator is a framework so it provides a gernic mechanism for all databases, oracle is special so we need to do some extra things here.

Solution:

Build two config files, they will be the same except a few parameters:

Database Config File:

/configs/oracle/data.conf

VOLUMES and SNAPVAULT_VOLUMES - Oracle data volumes and all non archive log data

ARCHIVE_LOG_ONLY=N

ARCHIVE_LOG_ENABLE=N # Here we dont need to handle archive log deletion since that will be done by archive log config.

Archive Config File:

/configs/oracle/arch.conf

VOLUMES and SNAPVAULT_VOLUMES - Oracle archive log volume

ARCHIVE_LOG_ONLY=Y # This options tells our Oracle Plugin to do step 4 only which is switch logs, write redo log info into archive logs.

ARCHIVE_LOG_ENABLE=Y

Now I can run SC and produce correct workflow:

./snapcreator --profile oracle --config data --policy daily --verbose

./snapcreator --profile oracle --config arch --policy daily --verbose

Let me know if this works?

Also what is nice about this solution is that many customers want to backup archive logs separately anyway so you would run your archive log config maybe hourly and the oracle data + archive log config once a day. Just an idea.

Regards,

Keith Tenzer

[#3]

Hi Keith,

thanks for the provided solution!

I'am sure this will work. But we have about 100 Oracle databases we would like to backup using SC. Following your solution, I have to create 200 Configs instead of 100 plus 100 wrapper Scripts which executes both configs sequencial.

This is a very high overhead in administration. If I have to change a single parameter in future, I might have to do this in all configs.

Is this the only possibility to achieve the standard Oracle backup mechanism using SC?

Best regards,

Christian

[#4]

Hi Christian,

Understood

You can use global configs to reduce chance of changing things (they are only supported in CLI).

For example filer credentials etc can be created in global config under /configs/global.conf which reduces chance of changing things.

Global config can be used with --global option

There are two types of configs

1. global /configs/global.conf

2. profile /configs/<profile>/global.conf

Global is loaded first then profile and then your config. So the config overwrites anything, in either global or profile config and profile config overwrites global. You do not need to use both global and profile you can use one or other.

Many customers are using this to control access points so separate storage config from app config and to limit config changes.

Unfortunately the Oracle plugin is not capable of handling the best practice in one config and requires two. We are looking to improve this but it is difficult since SC architecture was designed to be generic and not app specific, Oracle is really a special case but we are seeing this need to have multiple snapshot steps instead of one.  I have created BURT 491386 to capture this.

We will do our best to address this issue in next release

Have you looked at SMO for Oracle? Although not sure that simplifies things

Let me know if global config idea helps

Regards,

Keith

[#5]

Hi Keith,

thanks again! I was not aware of the possibility of a global config! This is great!

Now I ended up with 3 config's per profile (database) - but as I set the most info in global config much smaller now!

1rst config is to backup binaries and datafiles including Oracle app stuf

2nd config is to backup archivelogs and remove old log files

3rd config will be called every 4 hours and just simply create a snapshot of archivelog dir

But still - a lot of configs and "wrapper" scripts!

Anyway - this is much better than before we startet this conversation!

Do you have any more ideas to more simplify this config(s)/scripts?

Best regards,
Christian

btw.:

do you know how to get rid of the 1 minute sleeping after snapvault trasnfer has been startet?

"NetApp Snapvault Update on destination flr04:/vol/flr10_t11g_1/ora is running, status transferring! Sleeping 1 minute"

[#6]

Hi Christian,

Glad to hear global configs helped and we understand managing lots of configs can be challenging. One thing I would definately do in your case is either use the scServer and scAgent that way your config files are central or another strategy I have seen customers use to get everything central without agent is install scServer on NFS share, then you can mount it on all your backup hosts. Using this strategy would allow you to remove wrapper scripts. You would still need two configs for your case 1) oracle data 2) arhchive logs but you could run the oracle archive log backup from oracle data config as NTAP_POST_CMD01, for example:

NTAP_POST_CMD01=/path/to/snapcreator --profile oracle --config arch --action snap --policy daily --verbose --global

You can also have the logs or config dirs located outside of SC install path with --log_dir and --config_dir options, that helps mostly with security / access

You cannot get away from needing two configs, even if oracle backup process worked within one config you would still need second config since you are running archive log backups more frequently and not backing up database at that time. Most customer do this, once a day daily backup of oracle data + archive logs and multiple times a day just archive log backups.

do you know how to get rid of the 1 minute sleeping after snapvault trasnfer has been startet?

"NetApp Snapvault Update on destination flr04:/vol/flr10_t11g_1/ora is running, status transferring! Sleeping 1 minute"

This is hard coded so using SnapVault means Snap Creator must wait until it is complete and every 60 seconds it checks, that is how it works, here is process:

1. snapvault update

2. check every minute until snapvault update is complete

3. when complete create snapvault snapshot, locking changes in snapshot on secondary

4. SC will check for any errors including transfer errors which is nice. SnapVault will go idle but that doesnt mean it is successful

Alternatives to SnapVault managed by SC:

1. Protection Manager - SC can register snapshot in PM and it can then do snapvault, SC can even kick off the PM backup job

2. SnapVault scheduler - SC supports create filer scheduler compliant snapshots. You can configure snapvault schedule on the filer and use the NTAP_SNAPVAULT_SNAPSHOT=Y option to enable this

In both cases SC takes consistent snapshot and then PM or snapvault scheduler on filer are responsible for snapvault. If you use these options you dont need to set SNAPVAULT_VOLUMES and SNAPVAULT_UPDATE=N.

Let me know if this helps

Keith

[#7]

Hi Keith,

I finally ended with 3 configs per database and a wrapper script for full db backup. Using global config, I could simplify the per db configs as much as possible. The 3rd config is used to just update the snapvault for archivelog every 4 hours...

One more thing:

as we use HP-UX - the current version 3.3 is not yet available for that platform. Do you know when this release will be out for HP-UX?

Best regards and very appreciate to your help!

Christian

[#8]

HP-UX will be supported in 3.4, the release is planned for June.

Regards,

Keith

[#9]

Hi Keith,

thanks for your help!!! Looking forward to the 3.4 release... Maybe you can manage to implement a correct Oracle Backup with only one config! :-)

Best regards,
Christian