Backup and Recovery - Oracle Exadata Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach - page 197

• Back up your archived redo logs to the FRA as frequently as your recovery time objective

(RTO) dictates.

• Connect to your target database in RMAN using a service name to distribute RMAN channels

across your Oracle RAC instances.

• Use between two and eight channels per instance by setting your

DEVICE TYPE DISK

PARALLELISM configuration.
Implement Block Change Tracking in your database to reduce backup times and backup •

storage requirements.

• If you have read only tablespaces or a large amount of dormant data, configure backup

optimization by issuing CONFIGURE BACKUP OPTIMIZATION ON in RMAN.
If you are backing up external to your Exadata storage (that is, outside the FRA to an external

•

device), choose your network wisely. You can use your 1 GbE NET3 networks for smaller
databases, 10 GbE NET3 interfaces for larger databases, or your InfiniBand fabric to get the
highest performance over the network.

• When using Oracle Secure Backup or third-party backup solutions, configure your backup

media servers to maximum your network bandwidth; for example, when possible, use
InfiniBand or 10 GbE on the media servers for large backups.

• When backing up to tape, allocate as many SBT channels in RMAN as tape drives. The goal is

to work in parallel.

When performing RMAN backups to tape or network-attached storage external to Exadata, the network,
media servers, or backup pools are much more likely to present the limiting factor to your database backup times.
Optimizing these types of configurations is most often a matter of allocating sufficient channels, both inside
RMAN and from a physical perspective, such as networks, tape drives, and so forth. Oracle provides a number of
solutions and products to provide an integrated, high-performing Oracle database backup solution for Exadata
including Oracle Secure Backup, the ZFS Storage Appliance, and other backup solutions capable of using 10 GbE or
InfiniBand networks.

■ oracle has published several Maximum availability architecture white papers on the topic of rMan backups
and oracle exadata. We recommend downloading and reading Backup and Recovery Performance and Best Practices for
Exadata Cell and Oracle Exadata Database Machine at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork /database/features
/availability/maa-tech-wp-sundbm-backup-11202-183503.pdf and Oracle Exadata Database Machine—Backup &
Recovery Sizing: Tape Backups at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork / database/availability
/maa-exadata-backup-methodology-495297.pdf .

Note

8-7. Backing Up the InfiniBand Switches
Problem
You wish to back up your InfiniBand switch image and key configuration files.