Disaster Recovery Planning For Oracle DB

Planning DR is essential for any DBA because DBA will be first one to get under the gun if something goes wrong with database.

You have two options available ,

1. Plan the DR
2. Look for new job.

I will focus on first one only as i love to get paid.

Oracle provides number of DR solutions and you need to select best one as per the business requirement.

DR Solutions are ,

1. Export & Import
   
2. RMAN conventional backups.
3. RMAN database copy
4. Flashback Database
5. Data Guard
6. SAN Snapshot
7. RAC

• Export & Import

Export & Import takes the logical backup means it takes backup of the database objects created but when database fails then you need to re-create the database and you need to import it once again.

Consider a case where in you have 2TB database than export and import would take plenty of time so its not a feasible solution for business.

• RMAN conventional backups

This is most preferred method of taking the backup as RMAN does not require any downtime.The problem with this solution is if you have large database and then you need to restore the database from backup in case of crash and it will long time to restore the database, so this is good solution for small databases but not for large database.

• RMAN database copy

This is awesome solution for large database like 2TB.With this solution you need to keep updated database copy in flash_recovery_area and you can perform the switch to copied database anytime whenever you want.It will take few minutes ( 10 Min ) only as it does not need to restore the datafiles from backup hence only recovery is required not restore.

The problem with this solution is that you need to have double of database size disk space as this will be the copy of database not compressed conventional backup.

One more problem is that datafile location will be changed once you perform the switch, so your business may not allow it.

Once you perform switch then you must take backup as you will not have anymore valid copies.

• Flashback Database

This is very useful solution in case of point in time recovery.You can do point in time recovery with RMAN conventional backup as well but RMAN need to restore all the files from backup and the perform point in time recovery.

In case of Flash Database enabled , Database can be flashed back to point in time very easily and fast with the help of flash back logs.

The problem with this solution is again disk space.

• Data Guard

This is the widely used option across the globe.With data guard you can maintain the copy of database on local or remote machine.Both databases will be in sync automatically using log shipping.

Data Guard provides two kind of standby.

Physical Standby

Physical standby will be block by block copy of your source database but it will always be in recovery mode or in read only mode, so if you need standby database in open mode than this is not correct choice for you.

Logical Standby

Logical Standby will be in read write mode, so it can be updated simulataneously but logical standby has lots of restrictions on datatypes so you need to see whether your source's datatypes are supported or not.

• SAN Snapshot

This is feature of SAN providers like NetApp , EMC etc.In this you can create snapshot of database where database is stored.This is very useful solution for large database because you can put database in begin backup mode and you can create the snapshot without having any impact on OS from which database is running.

• RAC ( Real Application Cluster )

Last but not the least , RAC - RAC is very useful in case of instance failure so if the instance running on first machine goes down then you can access database from second instance.

RAC requiresAexpensiveAof resources like Giga byte Private Interconnect , SAN etc.

All in all i would recommend to have RAC with Data Guard implemented for true DR solution.