veritas netbackup™ copilot for oracle®

Solution Brief: A revolutionary new approach to database backup and recovery

Veritas NetBackup™ Copilot for Oracle®



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Content

Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Fragmented Backup Processes Challenge DBAs and Backup Administrators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Database Growth Increases the Risk of Business Impact and Failed Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

A New Approach is Needed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Veritas NetBackup™ Copilot for Oracle®: A Revolution in Database Backup and Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Benefits of this New Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6



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Highlights • Streamlines the protection of Oracle databases by simplifying collaboration between database and backup

administrators .

• Reduces storage requirements and frees up high performance storage for production use .

• Accelerates database backup times through a perpetual incremental approach .

• Simplifies self-service process to give database administrators (DBAs) greater control and independently manage backups on their own schedule .

• Provides backup admins with complete visibility to all operations while automating back-end processes.

Fragmented Backup Processes Challenge DBAs and Backup Administrators

When it comes to database protection these days, the left hand often doesn’t know what the right hand is doing . Over the years, the tools and processes that DBAs and backup admins rely on to ensure reliable data protection, timely recovery, and consistent governance have become highly fragmented . In an effort to retain some control over backup operations, many DBAs prefer the “dump-and-sweep” approach, resulting in a two-step process that requires the DBA and backup admin to perform separate tasks using their own tools and utilize a shared storage area where data is handed-off. Many DBAs prefer the dump-and-sweep approach for several reasons, including:

• Allowing the DBA to use tools they are familiar with, such as Oracle® Recovery Manager (RMAN).

• Direct access to backup copies allowing the DBA to quickly execute recovery operations without having to request assistance from the backup team .

• Control over backup schedules allowing the DBA to coordinate backups with other database maintenance tasks to avoid overloading database systems .

• Helping the DBA avoid database crashes by making sure the transaction log space is properly maintained .

• Eliminating the need to grant additional security access to the database .

Unfortunately the widespread dump-and-sweep method of database protection creates blind spots and inefficiencies that can prevent each side from understanding the complete picture and taking the best course of action . For example:

• DBAs cannot directly see or utilize older “swept” backup copies that reside off-site or on long-term storage, such as tape or cloud storage .

• Full recovery from “swept” backups requires a much slower, two-step process.

• Backup admins cannot easily verify databases are being properly protected in case of disaster or retained according to regulatory compliance requirements .

• Dump storage areas often utilize expensive, high-performance storage resources.

• Lines of accountability blur when data is lost, resulting in pervasive finger pointing.

So while the dump-and-sweep approach can be convenient and can provide a degree of self-service for DBAs, there are important downsides that jeopardize the availability and integrity of database information .



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Database Growth Increases the Risk of Business Impact and Failed Recovery

Relentless data growth continues to compound the challenges of protecting database information . It’s not unusual for a database to double its size every 18 months, and with big data applications database sizes are breaking new records every day . For the largest databases, backups can become a serious challenge as backup times begin to exceed 24 hours . This challenge includes a number of factors:

• Larger backup windows prolong the impact to database performance and availability .

• Longer backup time degrades the best possible recovery point objective (RPO) and reduces the maximum number of recovery points .

• Longer backup time increases the amount of redo logs that must be processed during a recovery, degrading recovery time .

• Hardware snapshots (crash consistent) can jeopardize data integrity.

As recovery objectives become increasingly stringent and database backups exceed realistic backup windows, traditional backup methods, including dump-and-sweep, become even more inadequate.

A New Approach is Needed

A new approach is needed to support existing DBA and backup admin workflows while creating clearer lines of responsibility with less finger-pointing. Ideally this solution should preserve the benefits of the dump-and-sweep method without its tradeoffs and improve how DBAs and backup admins work together to protect database data . Finally, the solution should scale to support massive databases and reduce the impact these operations have on the business . In particular, this new approach should:

• Give the DBA the choice to execute backup and restores using their own tools or relinquish that responsibility to the backup admin .

• Give the DBA full visibility over and access to the entire data lifecycle, including long-term copies.

• Give the backup admin complete visibility over database backups initiated by the DBA .

• Eliminate the waste of expensive, high-performance storage for backup copies.

• Dramatically reduce backup and recovery times .

With this new approach, IT organizations should be able to achieve greater levels of operational efficiency, data integrity, business productivity, and regulatory compliance .



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Veritas NetBackup™ Copilot for Oracle®: A Revolution in Database Backup and Recovery

Veritas NetBackup™ Copilot for Oracle® integrates native Oracle tools with the backup application and purpose-built storage to create an optimized solution for the protection of Oracle that enables better collaboration between DBA and backup teams. Copilot gives confidence that the database is protected, and assures that it is safe, compliant, and accessible whenever it may be needed . There are several important elements that make this solution possible:

• NetBackup appliance storage—Utilizes a NetBackup appliance as the “landing pad” for all RMAN-directed operations, via a NFS share. Database shares can draw additional capacity on-demand from a shared pool.

• Deep Oracle RMAN catalog integration—Keeps the RMAN catalog synchronized with all NetBackup database copies available within the data lifecycle .

• Accelerator for Oracle—Provides “incremental forever” backup method by leveraging Oracle® Incremental Merge technology without scripting. Space-optimized full backup images are automatically synthesized to prepare for fast recovery .

By more efficiently utilizing backup storage space with a single pool of storage for all backups in the environment, NetBackup Copilot eliminates storage redundancy between native tool backup and application agent backup . This results in fewer storage locations to manage for space and access while freeing up high performance storage for production use . Because NetBackup Copilot reduces the load on the network and the Oracle database, performance is no longer impacted as heavily by increasing data volumes .

Attribute Traditional approaches NetBackup Copilot for OracleVisibility for the DBA

With dump-and-sweep, DBA can only see initial copies he creates using RMAN.

DBA can see all backup copies across the entire lifecycle within the Oracle RMAN recovery catalog. All subsequent copies made by NetBackup are synchronized with Oracle .

Visibility for the Backup Admin

With dump-and-sweep, backup admin only sees database backup copies as nondescript files.

Backup Admin recognizes Oracle database backups as distinct from ordinary file backups.

Business impact

Database servers are impacted heavily for the entire duration of the backup. Dump-and-sweep doubles the impact to network and storage infrastructure .

Shifts processing and I/O burden to a dedicated NetBackup appliance and eliminates the double data move . Faster backups with Accelerator for Oracle reduce impact duration on the production environment .

Storage utilization

Space is required for “dump” area as well as “sweep” area, doubling the storage requirement . Dump area often uses high performance storage, and older copies must be deleted to make room for newer copies .

Storage space is utilized on a NetBackup appliance (NFS share) and is automatically maintained by NetBackup. With Accelerator for Oracle, less storage is required to store changed blocks .

Full backup time

Full backups must be performed on regular (e.g. weekly) basis.

With Accelerator for Oracle, traditional full backups are no longer necessary (after an initial full). Oracle Incremental Merge is used to synthesize new full backup images using older backups and newer changed blocks .

Full recovery process

For dump-and-sweep, recovery is a two-step process requiring the same data to be moved or imported twice .

Data is restored directly into Oracle .

Recovery time For dump-and-sweep, full recovery time is effectively doubled . Redo log processing time also increases with the time between backups .

Full recovery does not require a two-step process. With Accelerator for Oracle, full backups can be run more often, so fewer redo logs must be processed during a recovery .

Recovery flexibility

DBA must request assistance when restoring older database copies that are not on storage he has access to .

DBA has access to all backup copies throughout the data lifecycle, including copies created by NetBackup .

NetBackup Copilot works for all NetBackup supported versions of Oracle .



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Benefits of this New Approach

By providing a solution that enables the DBA and backup admin to more easily work together, NetBackup Copilot not only creates clear lines of responsibility, but it also allows each administrator to focus on their own areas of expertise while trusting their counterparts to do the same . Ultimately, NetBackup Copilot can help IT organizations:

• Better coordinate workflows between the database and backup teams.

• Reduce impacts on the business .

• Increase savings on storage utilization and network bandwidth .

• Deploy manageable big data solutions to drive business value .

Conclusion

As the size of databases continues to increase, IT organizations are challenged to keep up with the demands it places on staff, storage, and network resources . The ability to work together to achieve recovery objectives and compliance requirements, while also increasing confidence through greater transparency, is vital. NetBackup Copilot for Oracle offers a revolutionary new approach to reduce the complexity of Oracle database backup and recovery, lay the groundwork for future growth, and help IT to become ever more agile so it can deliver greater value to the business .



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About Veritas Technologies LLC

Veritas Technologies LLC enables organizations to harness the power of their information, with solutions designed to serve the world’s largest and most complex heterogeneous environments . Veritas works with 86 percent of Fortune 500 companies today, improving data availability and revealing insights to drive competitive advantage .

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V0001 10/2015

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