You're right that this would be completely separate from NetWorker.  I don't know what the licensing requirements for that that would be.

More info here:

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h10683-dd-boost-oracle-rman-tech-review-wp.pdf

-Bobby

Hi Bobby, I got some information from one of your colleagues.  Basically DD Boost for Oracle RMAN allows your Oracle backups to be sent directly to the Data Domain storage unit without going through Networker, the implication of which is:

(1)  the Oracle server maintains its RMAN catalog as an equivalent of the media database

(2) there is no centralization of backups, each Oracle server (and instance if different versions on a server) requires a seperate version of DDfO

(3) no additional licenses are required to the DDBoost license on the DataDomain

Looks interesting.  I guess it's harder to manage since you have no centralisation with each Oracle instance doing its own thing, but technically it's gotta be very similar as the NetWorker module is the least important part of that process.  I guess it boils down to whether you're willing to pay more to have everything centralised.  I don't really know how you'd go about managing reporting of these backups but there's probably a easyish way to do that with RMAN.

-Bobby

David Hampson wrote: Anyone able to give me a quick answer on this one.... One of our Oracle tech leads has got a bright idea to use DD Boost for RMAN to solve his backup issues; however it looks to me like this is a solution that integrates RMAN directly with a Data Domain with no Networker being involved (and of course bringing licensing implications with it, plus the requirement to partition the DataDomain in some way)?  Am I right or not?

If you are using NW, it makes no sense since you can achieve pretty much the same functionality with NW+NMDA when using DFA functionality. If you would have some legacy systems which you would not be able to cover with online modules any longer, then those would be good candidates for writes to DD outside NW knowledge. If you are running backups in environment where application teams are responsible for backups (scheduling, checks and all other sort of things that you would have centrilized with NW), then RMAN to DD without NW would most likely be something DBAs would go for (rather wrong perception).

Hi Hrvoje

We have Oracle teams that manage backup and restore processes with us being responsible for managing the infrastructure and backups so this might be something that appeals to them, a way of getting those annoying backup dudes out of the picture!  When someone has a knack of digging themselves into a hole and expecting you to dig them out the last thing you want to give them is a spade  

Bobby, you'd be surprised how close to the mark you are.  DDfO and NMO use the same set of libraries so backup is pretty much identical, its just the media handling is transferring back to the Oracle server itself.  It is not some kind of backup holy grail that will resolve all Oracle backup issues as our Oracle team seem to think, any problems you see in Networker you are likely to see in DDfO

Cheers

David

RMAN BOOST only requires BOOST to be licensed on the Data Domain. After that usage is free and no Networker license is required.

Hi, this is not quite true - you will also need a:

Data Domain storage system enabler (license type D142)

- as additional licence in your NetWorker environment (might not be needed if you use NetWorker volume licensing).

We are looking for reports per customer per database usage , unsure how we can get them

If you are using only DD and Oracle then there no direct method to track backup volume on the DD. You could however achieve this on the RMAN by querying the total data backed up per database.

I'm on thin ice here.. but one of my customers is using oracle grid to schedule and monitor rman-backups with ddboost directly to a two DD2500s... so maybe that gives the dbas what they want

A