RMAN Plugin backups: how to have a "GFS like" retention?

[tinto1970]

Good day, one of our customer would like to use a 60 days retention fo the Oracle RMAN backup, but he needs to keep in example

a Full backup (monthly) for 12 months
a Full backup (yearly) for 3 years

I have found this post https://community.veeam.com/blogs-and-p ... ntion-3563

and probably that's what he needs. But in case, it's no longer possible to manage the plugin from the Veeam Server, I guess. Am I right?

thanks in advance

[PetrM]

Hi Alessandro,

Yes, this example suits for the standalone mode but cannot be used when the plug-in is in managed mode. GFS retention is one of our most popular requests for Oracle RMAN backup policy but ETA is yet to be determined.

Thanks!

[tinto1970]

thank you very very much, Petr, for your kind and quick answer. I will explain this to my customer, and let's see what they will decide to do.

Have a nice day!

[lpaino]

Good afternoon.

I was using Rman scripts, as shown in this post https://community.veeam.com/blogs-and-p ... ntion-3563.
However, after the last update of the Plugin, Rman is unable to name the files generated in the Repository, meaning that the controlfile cannot find the generated files.
With this routines such as crosscheck, restore, etc. is compromised.
Does anyone face this difficulty?
I've already opened a Veeam case, but without success. Case # 07541724

Grateful.

[PetrM]

Hi Leandro and Welcome to Veeam R&D Forums!

I suppose this is related to the fact that we reuse the same backup file for multiple backup sessions to reduce the number of backup files on the repository file system and the number of objects in the Veeam configuration database. Therefore, the backup file naming convention is also different: we keep many backups that have their original RMAN names (check the RMAN catalog) in our 'big' backup file with a different name. This approach allows us to achieve higher scalability targets and significantly increase performance.

However, I'm not sure I understand how this impacts your scripts, because the naming of backups in the RMAN catalog remains the same.

Thanks!

[Andreas Neufert]

Hi Allesandro,

if you perform backups through RMAN scripts, you can give specific backup runs the "keep" option, which excludes them from your regular RMAN retention processing.
You need to ensure however that the Veeam Garbage Collection time is higher than the set "keep" date, as Garbage Collection will just delete backups older than x days.

https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/ora ... ption.html

[lpaino]

I currently have an Oracle environment running on AIX servers. In version 12.1, I was able to perform backups normally using RMAN, setting up daily, weekly, and monthly backup routines, each with their respective retention policies. The process was working fine. However, after upgrading to version 12.2, RMAN is still able to generate backups, but the method of storing them in the repository has changed, preventing the Controlfile from accessing the necessary files for restoration.

This issue has impacted the use of Veeam for Oracle in this environment.

I have opened a support ticket with Veeam (#03245485), but no solution has been provided so far. A correction request has been made, but there has been no response.

Is anyone else facing a similar issue?

[PetrM]

Hi Leandro,

There were no changes in the data storage format between versions 12.1 and 12.2. We began using the same target backup file for multiple backup sessions starting with version 12.1.

I'm not sure that I understand this part:

the Controlfile from accessing the necessary files for restoration

What exactly is not working? Could you please elaborate a little bit more on it?

Thanks!