Oracle AAIP warnings

[massimiliano.rizzi]

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Veeam Support Case # 04048526
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Hello Community,

please consider the following scenario:

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1) Among various Hyper-V VMs that are currently backed up and replicated using Veeam Backup & Replication, some Windows VMs are running Oracle databases inside the Guest OS and result in Oracle AAIP warnings in both Backup and Replication job sessions when such VMs are processed (ORA-00942 and ORA-01017)
2) All Oracle databases are currently being backed up independently by a different native or RMAN solution inside each Guest OS
3) Our Customer would like to continue using current native or RMAN solutions while making sure both image-level backups and replicas of all Oracle servers are application-consistent
4) As most production Oracle servers contain sensitive data, there is a requirement from the Security Team which limits the number of accounts with SYSDBA rights on the Oracle databases
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According to the information available at https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... er=110#veo, it is my understanding that all methods available for Oracle AAIP require a highly privileged user account (a member of the ORA_DBA group if OS authentication is used or SYSDBA privileges if OS authentication is not being used).

Is my understanding correct ?

According to our findings using a test job, selecting the Copy Only option in the General Tab also results in Oracle AAIP warnings as well.

Is this an expected behavior ?

Thanks and Regards,

Massimiliano

[PetrM]

Hi Massimiliano,

Yes, it's expected, "Copy only" mode is not something that will help you to eliminate warnings. Speaking about "ORA-01017" error code, in > 90 % of cases this message appears due to incorrect user specified in this step of job configuration wizard. Your understanding of the required permissions is correct. You must select either "Use guest OS credentials" in case of OS authentication or database user such as "SYS" in case of password file authentication. Also, please review the corresponding section on this page of our help center to get more information about permissions.

The "ORA-00942" message will be thrown if a query is executed against table or view that does not exist. I'd let our support team to figure out the reason of this message, I think they will be able to determine the problematic query based on debug logs analysis.

If you process transaction logs by RMAN, you should select "Do not delete archived logs" option and disable periodic log backup in "Guest Processing - Applications - Oracle" step.

Thanks!

[massimiliano.rizzi]

Hi Petr,

first of all thank you for taking the time to read my post and provide me with the information. It is very much appreciated.

Out of curiosity, in such scenario where either:

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1) Oracle AAIP "Yellow" warnings are present
2) Even worse, the DisableOracleProcessing key is set with value 1 inside each Oracle Guest OS in order to instruct Veeam to not process Oracle (https://www.veeam.com/kb2686)
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Is it correct to say that in the two scenarios above backups and replicas for Oracle will be Crash consistent only ?

Our primary goal here is ending up with application-consistent backups and replicas of all Oracle server machines, so please do not interpret that as us trying to take the “out of sight out of mind approach”

We are only trying to end up with a solid understanding of the logic behind Oracle backups with Veeam from a recoverability standpoint.

Thanks and Regards,

Massimiliano

[PetrM]

Hi Massimiliano,

Yes, it's correct to say that backups will be crash-consistent in your case but keep in mind that it depends on every specific warning. The "ORA-01017" message definitely tells about the impossibility to connect to Oracle database and alter it to backup mode. I'm not sure about "ORA-00942" message as it's difficult to say what might be the reason and side effects without logs.

If your primary goal is to have application-consistent backups, then you need to resolve the issues that make the mentioned warnings to appear. To do that, make sure that the correct user is selected in "Guest Processing - Applications - Oracle" step of job configuration wizard and work with our support team to find out the cause of the "ORA-00942" error code.

Thanks!

[massimiliano.rizzi]

Hi Petr,

thank you again for your time and for the information.

Just a side-note after working with the support team. The cause of the "ORA-00942" error code is the lack of proper permissions set on the Oracle database.

Have a nice day!

Massimiliano