Use Networker to archive RMAN/DDBoost-backups

What you would do is nsrstage to archive pool and increase browse/retention of those ssids.

I personally rejected this approach in company I'm with now because I follow these principles:

- if something requires long-term backup, give me the proof (compliance, business decision, etc)

- then export this and only this data

- and I will do backup

Reasons behind this decision are two:

1. I don't wish to backup TBs of DB for something that can be reduced to MBs or GBs
2. In 7+ years can you assure me you will run same architecture and be able to read data if backed up in native format? No you can't so therefore you will create dump and as to on which OS platform we will run your DB this won't matter (as long as it is same DB).

DBAs accepted this approach though it was a bit of a work for them to figure out (and reorganize internally) data which was subject to longer retention.

Thank you for quick response.. and advise regarding approach.. I'll consider other approaches but in this case.. I think its difficult to change this as it is customer data.

nsrstage? can I use that since networker doesn't even know about the rman backups? per now we are intiating those rmanbackups from scripts on oracle-server.

anthome wrote: nsrstage? can I use that since networker doesn't even know about the rman backups? per now we are intiating those rmanbackups from scripts on oracle-server.

Just because they are initiated from client, doesn't mean NW is not aware of them (unless you are not using NMDA module at all).  But I suspect you do since you posted question here so NW is aware of it unless you thought of RMAN using DDBoost (without NMDA) is made and then NW is supposed to move this to tape. In theory this should also be possible as I was told during last EMC World that option has been added for NW to sense and be aware of such backups too, but I personally never tested it as I do not use this approach (and most likely this required latest modules and NW version as well - again something I do not run yet).

Mason:

But if using the NMDA, the oracle DBA cannot use rman to restore?. Often the DBAs dont know how to use any other backupsoftware than rman(as is it is in this case).

Crvelin:

We are not using NMDA at all.. (we are in the tesing phase at the moment), but do you know how this new option in NW works? or what to search for to find more information on this approach?

I understand that we should also look into the NMDA-option..

Yes they can.  NMDA is just interface between RMAN and NetWorker.  With NMDA, they just additionally add parameters for backup server like pool and server and that's it.  However, if you opted out from this approach so far, the this may also indicate you do not have DDBoost device license on backup server (might be there if using it for other backups or if you use capacity license).  From DBA point of view, nothing really changes except adding backup specific information to channels allocated.

Do you know what the new technique/feature browsing/copying data from DD to tape with Networker is called so that I can try to find more information on this aswell as investigate on NMDA in parallel. Some of those databases are are quite big (1TB) and the customer is concerned about moving a full backup of these data multiple times.. as it is now.. the backup-stream only goes from the oracle-server to the DD.

Not sure exactly what concern is, but you easy measure how much space it takes and what kind of speed there is (actually, DBAs can do that as well).  1TB is not really big and I'm not sure what DD box you use, but I guess something like 8-10 channels should be ok test or even more permanent setup.  As for this new feature, I have no idea to be honest and I didn't check 8.2 docs yet since it went GA, but it feels like this is fairly new environment so why simply not ask those who sold solution to you?

Anthome,

With Networker, NMDA and DDBoost device on DD you would have backup configuration where scheduling is possible from NetWorker and RMAN etc is still used and available to DBA’s for restore. Another possibility is that backup can be initiated from client also via cron/script.

With your current set up using DD and DDboost plugin NetWorker is obviously unaware of anything going on from this configuration. The plugin maintains information about the backups on the DD therefore if at a later date you introduce NetWorker then you can configure the DDBoost device in NetWorker and effectively import the historical backup information from the plugin information. So it is not a case of having to copy the original backup from DDBoost device to tape or other media – you are just importing the historical backup information and inserting into the NetWorker Media Database so going forward NetWorker is aware and then continues with the backup of the database via NMDA/NW to the DDBoost device originally used.

Regards,

Bill Mason

Thanks for reply to all participants in this thread.

We have now installed NMDA on the clients and we are able to start rman jobs both from rman and from networker.

But I've not quite figured out how to scheduele incrementals in weekdays and full on friday. do I need two different scripts? and how do I make networker run one on weekdays and one on friday?

Yes, you should need 2 separate scripts to accomplish the incremental (archive log) and weekly full. The schedule can be set by creating a new schedule resource one for each under NMC -> Configuration -> Schedule and then applying it to the respective client or group configuration.