Friday, September 26, 2008

useful backup tool @ Oracle AS Recovery Manager

In one of my previous blogs I had written on a scenario where configuration files may get corrupted and some workarounds to bring up the server. One of the options which I didn’t mention there was Backup and Recovery tool provided by Oracle SOA Suite 10.1.3.x. In Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 (10.1.2.0.2), OracleAS Backup and Recovery Tool was packaged with Metadata Repository Upgrade Assistant and Utilities. But in 10.1.3.x the tool was renamed as Oracle Application Server Recovery Manager and packaged as part of Oracle SOA Suite 10g (10.1.3.x).

The Oracle AS recovery Manager is available in the Oracle_Home/backup_restore directory. The executable file is bkp_restore.(sh/bat) based on the environment. I will give an overview on how to start with OAS Recovery Manager along with some of the options available with it.

The main pre-requisite is to set the ORACLE_HOME environment variable. Then you have to configure your manager. For that edit config.inp file@ Oracle_Home/backup_restore/config folder. The most important attributes for which values has to set are

config_backup_path=/home/soauser/backups/config_files

log_path=/ home/soauser/backups/log_files

CONFIG_BACKUP_PATH: This parameter points to a directory which should be used by the script to backup your configuration files. Used for restoration also. LOG_PATH: This is path under which the tool saves logs generated during backups and restores of database and configuration files.DB backup option is also there.

There is another attribute named config_files_list in config.inp where you can specify different types of input files .The input files will be having details of files/folders that needs to be part of the backup. The config folder will be having a collection of input files. Recovery Manager has provided config_misc_files.inp files for inputting all the application specific files. For example some log files.

To specify a file in inp files -- ${ORACLE_HOME}/directory_path/file

for a directory -- ${ORACLE_HOME}/directory_path/

There are different backup options available

->cold backup

->online backup

->LOHA - Loss of Host Automation

There is a mode for backing up the config files alone and one on incremental mode. Incremental mode will backup only the files which were modified after the last backup. Online backups can provide a convenient solution in multi-user systems because they do not require downtime, as does a conventional offline (cold) backup.LOHA helps user to migrate Oracle Application Server instances from one host to another.

Some modes available (to be used with –m option)

->for a full configuration backup. - backup_config

->incremental configuration file backup-- backup_config_incr

->cold backup of the Oracle AS instance-- backup_instance_cold

->incremental cold backup of the Oracle A S instance -- backup_instance_cold_incr

->online backup of the Oracle AS instance -- backup_instance_online

->Restores configuration files -- -restore_config [-t config_bkp_timestamp]

Instead of manually taking the backup, always try to use the Oracle AS Recovery Manager utility which will help you a lot at the time of restoration.

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