Restore Oracle Database transation log < 15 minutes RTPO

[Farrukh]

Hi

i have a backup job of oracle database run every 2 hours and also taking transaction log backup every 15 minutes. is there any way to restore them on another host with minimum time. as veeam claims less then 15 minutes RTPO.

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Muhammad,

Sure, it is possible but it will depend on a few things.

1. If you are going to do a full restore, then it will probably take more than 15 minutes (think about the size of the data that needs to be recovered)
2. You could investigate if instant recovery works for you. This will start the VM from the backup, but this most probably will be slower (your backup storage will be slower). While it runs, then you can migrate it back online to the production storage
3. You might consider to recover only the databases if you already have other oracle boxes ready.
...

Veeam gives you a lot of different restore possibilities and I would investigate those, see what works best specifically for your environment and think about the scenario's where you want to recover very fast. After all, in your SLA, always keep in mind that minor issues can be fixed quickly (think explorer for Oracle). But a big disaster (fire in the datacenter) will require a different approach

Hope it helps
Cheers
Mike

[Farrukh]

Thanks for the reply. in my case i am taking backup every 1.5 hours and also enabled transaction logs backup. my vm size is about 2TB also replicating from backup files. failover replica can be done in few minutes but take the last backup. and missed the transaction logs after that backup and if i go to restore database using explorer for orale it will take time as it first delete the exisiting data file and then restore database. is there any mechanism that we can also apply transaction logs to the backup file so when we replicate it will start the failover with latest logs??

[Mike Resseler]

Good setup

And yes, with the Veeam explorer for Oracle you will be able to achieve this. Look here: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... tml?ver=95
When you are going to restore, you will work with log replaying so you can get to the latest moment

Hope it helps
Mike

[Farrukh]

Hi

can you help me to elaborate the setup.

[Mike Resseler]

Hey,

Not sure what you mean? You should enable transaction log backups in the backup job. When that is done (and working) you can open the Veeam explorer and start the wizard. To restore it to another server (which is the replica), look here: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... tml?ver=95

If I misunderstood the question, let me know
Mike

[Farrukh]

Hi

i know this and enabled the logs on vm backup job and i tested it on test database(clone of prod database) takes 4-5 hours to restore. is it there any possibility than when i failover replica/instance vm recovery it will up with the latest logs that is backup up means: backup taken at 12:00 PM + logs till 12:30PM

[Mike Resseler]

Hmmm,

I just realized I might be wrong here. I have misread your setup. You are not replicating directly. You replicate from the backup job, and it is the backup job that does the log processing. In that case I fear (but I should check internally also) that it will always bring the DB to a certain point and then do log replay. So that is not what you want I'm afraid. Let me check internally with some Oracle specialists so they can advise.

[Andreas Neufert]

Hi Muhammad,

thanks for writing all the detailed feedback.
For our Oracle integration at VMware Image level backup it will use an Oracle User Managed backup approach.

This means at VM restore, Instant VM Restore or Replica Failover the database will come up automatically to a consistent stage.
Veeam Explorer for Oracle can not be brought together with that stage, which means that a point in time recovery with it, restore the database first, before it will reply archive logs to the point in time.

Based on your and other feedback we understand the gap in the RTO area and are working on a more close integration into Oracle RMAN where the Oracle Admin can handle this more granular in a more Oracle DB integrated way.

Until this is available, you can maybe use Storage Snapshots or higher frequent backups to achive a higher RPO so that you can use the image backups for restore. As Oracle support crash consistent backups, it is maybe helpful here to deactivate in guest processing for it. (Speak with your Oracle Admin to discuss the options).

Thanks Andy.

[Farrukh]

Hi

thanks for the reply. when it will be possible to available "Based on your and other feedback we understand the gap in the RTO area and are working on a more close integration into Oracle RMAN where the Oracle Admin can handle this more granular in a more Oracle DB integrated way."

[Andreas Neufert]

There is a strict rule that we will not pre announce details. I was able to share this as we already announced this a while ago when this rule was not in place. Sorry

[Mike Resseler]

Thanks Andreas for helping out! (And again sorry Muhammad for understanding wrongly. Mea culpa)

[Farrukh]

No thanks for the replies.