Jeff,
I can only really comment on your last question about using
expired RMAN images for restores if they are not expired in NetBackup. We
had a similar issue a few weeks back where Netbackup could still see images in
its catalog of oracle backups (which initiate a RMAN backup via the
oracle_backup.sh script) but RMAN had already expired them inside its own
catalog. These files were not recoverable by RMAN. We had the DBA’s
set their retention inside RMAN to match the retention specified inside NBU so
that we don’t see this mis-match again.
Ultimately, RMAN controls the expiration of the images inside its
catalog meaning that regardless of the expiration you set for oracle backups
inside NBU, RMAN will keep or expire those images, regardless of what Netbackup
is trying to tell it. I don’t know how you’d configure RMAN
to handle your vaulting needs. Would setting the expiration of these
images in RMAN to the longest required length of time (4 months for example)
mean that the vaulted images would still be good for the max time they’d
need to be held on either the Data Domain or tape ? The Netbackup catalog
doesn’t need to know about the RMAN images for them to still be
recoverable by RMAN so you could set a different, shorter expiration inside NBU
although this would still leave you with different retentions in the two
different catalogs
FYI The solaris client we were trying to restore these RMAN images to is
running 6.5.4 with a 7.0 master and media server.
Mark Glazerman
Desk: 314-889-8282
Cell: 618-520-3401
P please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to
From:
veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Lightner,
Jeff
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 7:12 AM
To: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: [Veritas-bu] RMAN crosscheck
My
DBAs are starting to question me about an RMAN crosscheck they are running.
Essentially
I gather that when they ran it the crosscheck seemed to report even backups run
in the last 2 days as expired.
On
checking the Data Domain unit I can see the images are still there and on
running NetBackup commands I see these are NOT expired from NBU’s
perspective.
On
doing a search I did find a document at Symantec that talked about RMAN
expirations but it only went up through 6.0 so I’m not sure if it is
still valid for 6.5. It says essentially that on the NBU side we should
set very long retentions (e.g. INFINITY) for all RMAN backup policies then let
RMAN keep track of retentions itself. The downside I see to this is
we do vaulting of the images on data domain to tape – we set retention on
data domain to 1 month then the vault copies get longer retentions (e.g. 3
months for a daily backup). How would we get RMAN to set and keep
track of such retention differences?
The
DBAs have opened a TAR with Oracle to see why the crosscheck is reporting the
images as expired but I suspect from the NBU document that the answer will be
something like “it is expired so far as RMAN is
concerned”. This also begs the question as to whether RMAN
could be used to restore the backups even if they aren’t expired so far
as NBU is concerned. Does anyone know the answer to that?
Proud
partner. Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
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