Recommendations for restore of an offline backup

[Former Member]

Hi guys

We are about to go to Go-Live production of the implementation of ECC 6.0 on AIX 6.1/Oracle 10.2.

The backups are running SAP with an option to backups type Offline for the transaction DB13 and tapes are made daily.

We want to test restore of our backups to make sure everything is working properly before they start operations in the system.

Tests have already been completed restoration of the OS and SAP (application and database) with filesystem-level backup and everything worked properly.

Now let us restore testing with SAP Offline Backups. Already configured the init.sap with the - m full for backups.

I would make sure that these are the steps to restore the test:

1 .- Shutdown SAP.

2 .- Shutdown Database.

3 .- In the directory sapbackup already exists last backup session.fft

3 .- Run the command: brrestore -b xxxx.fft -m full

4 .- After the restore, open the database and test

We will not apply the offline redo because the client wanted only to have offline backups daily and are aware that data loss is one day.

As explained SAP (help.sap.com) is not required to restore the redolog offline, because an offline backup I have a consistent database until the backup was performed: "After an offline backup of the complete database, you have a backup of the database that is consistent. If you work with the database after the backup, the backup is no longer up-to-date. In this case, you have to recover the database after you restore the backup, using the redo log files"

I would like to know if this procedure is correct or I may be missing something??

Thanks for your recommendations

Desiré

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

except the point 2. Wherein we need the DB to be in mount stage and not shutdown

Can you clarify....how you can restore test backup without shutting down your DB and keeping in mount stage.

Suggest you to go through official Database recovery doc or Homogenous system copy guide

Regards,

Nick Loy

[former_member204746 · Accepted solution]

you should use backup option "-m all"

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks guys for your recommendations to consider.

Nick I can not use a Homogenous system copy in this case because this will be my production environment, and we want to test the current backup to ensure operation before going into production.

We want to make this real test simulating a system failure. I have nothing to lose because the environment is still no project changes.

Tomorrow we will be doing tests

Good day to all

Desiré

[former_member204746 · Accepted solution]

so, you want to backup your PROD system.

then, you restore on the same system?

If this fails, what will you do? you will lose your PROD system!

So, your best solution is to restore on another system.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Eric I have no other server available for this test.

But last week we tested recovery of the production system with full backup of all filesystems and were satisfactory.

Before this test, we also perform backups of the filesystems (cold backup) in case I fail the offline backup of SAP.

Thanks for your suggestion.

Desiré

[volker_borowski2]

> We will not apply the offline redo because the client wanted only to have offline backups daily and are aware that data loss is one day.

Hi,

but hopefully this does not mean, you are running NoArchive mode?

Before you do the actual restore to your live system, you can run a brbackup with verify option.

In this case after the backup each datafile is restored to sapreorg one by one and either

compared to the saved file (usefull for offline backup) or dbv-erified (usefull for online backup).

Volker

[Former Member]

Thanks Volker for the replay.

The system is in Archive Mode. But it was a decision of the client who just wants to work with offline backups and are waiting to buy a backup tool to keep better control.

Thanks for your suggestion I will take into account before the backup.

[former_member204746]

you can also consider doing ONLINE backup

with brbackup, use option "-t online_cons".

this will run an online backup, but will also backup all redologs that were generated during the online backup. With this, you have all that you need to restore... and you get no downtime as a bonus.

You should consider that approach. Offline backups are things of the past.

[Former Member]

Thanks Eric for the reply

Yes, I'm trying to convince the customer the benefit of using online backups and the benefit that is at the time of recovery.

Since this is the first time working with SAP, are accustomed to the old school to work with Oracle and use the Export-Import process (Dump) of the database.

Best regards,

Desiré

[Former Member]

Hi guys, good day !!!

The test results were satisfactory recovery. It restored the database without problems.

We only had one error, because the recovery was first made with user and opened the database and SAP started without problem and stay consistent.

Thank you all for your recommendations

Desiré

[Former Member]

Hi Desirée Cárdenas,

Its good to hear that u have successfully recovered the DB.

Thanks for updating the issue u have faced and its resolution step. This will help the fellow SCN members/SAP users for sure one day or other.

Regards,

Varadharajan M

[Former Member]

Hi,

All the procedures mentioned by you are fine except the point 2. Wherein we need the DB to be in mount stage and not shutdown.

As mentioned in the online help, the offline backup is complete and consistent and thus u do not need a redo log recovery after the restore of offline backup. But if u r not recovering the latest offline redo logs u will loose the data/changes.

In case if u r performing a restore test using an offline backup then u can go ahead and open the DB without applying the redo logs.

If u r recovering the DB from a backup on a live production environment then u need to recover the redo logs to avoid data loss.

Hope this helps and clarifies.

Regards,

Varadharajan M