backup oracle vm's

[Dave]

Hi,

We are using veeam 4.1 to backup virtual machines and this goes fine but we have troubles with our oracle vm's. When I start to backup an oracle vm the database services will be terminated. This always happens at the start of the backup. First I was thinking that the termination of the oracle services was triggered by making a snapshot of the system. So I tested making and deleting snapshots but didn't encounter any problems. So I started a test backup of the oracle vm's but I the problem persist and the service is terminated.

The vm's mentioned are:
Windows 2000 SP4 with Oracle 8.1.7.2.1
Windows 2003 Enterprise R2 SP2 with Oracle 10.2.01

Regards,
Dave

[m.novelli]

Do you have some errors or warnings in Event Viewer? Are you using VSS on Windows 2003 VM?

Marco

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Dave,

Also can you tell us whether you're using VMware Tools Quiescence option while doing backups of your Oracle VMs? Have you used this option while doing snapshots manually?

[Dave]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick responses.

@marco
Yes, I get the following warnings:
Instance wiat has been terminated
Instance wdmt has been terminated

These are the databases that are terminated. I'm not using VSS on the Win2003 VM.

@Vitaliy
The option is on for the VMware Tools Quiescence and I have not used quiesced snapshots.

More info:
When the backup of the oracle machines run and I restart the db instances they keep running without any problem. After the backup has finished and the snapshots are merged I don't have any problems.

Regards,
Dave

[m.novelli]

Please try enabling the VSS option on the Windows 2003 VM
Are you doing hot Oracle backups with a VSS-aware backup software, like Symantec Backup or TSM?

Ciao

Marco

[Gostev]

There is an existing thread on how to backup perform VSS-aware Oracle backups with Veeam: How to backup Oracle

[Dave]

hi,

thanks for the help and pointing me in the right direction.

@marco with vss enabled I can do a backup, we did backups with oracle backup agents.
@gostev thanks for the link

regards,
dave

[virtualwatts]

Hi Dave,

Please be careful, the snapshot will complete successfully, but I don't think you have a valid backup. You will not be able to use VSS with the 8i dbms and I'm pretty certain the VSS compatibility for 10g requires patchset 10.2.0.3. You say you are at 10.2.0.1. Just giving you a heads up to test your backup as it may only be crash consistent and to be careful with db corruption (don't select VMware quiescence).

For pre-10.2.0.3 you will need pre-freeze/post-thaw scripts as mentioned in the link Gostev provided.

You can test reproducing snapshot errors by going to VMware and issuing a snapshot, unselecting memory and selecting quiesce. That will simulate the Veeam snapshot.

Regards
Rick