Skip to main content
commvault.com commvault.com

Hello,

I have this use case I would like to discuss:

Our customer has Oracle databases on AIX (all combinations - RAC/no RAC, ASM/Filesystem).

They would like to implement forever incremental backups (especially for the larger databases - about 100TB).

We have implemented this before (another customer) but only with Oracle RAC ASM on Linux…

Since there are more combinations here and a different OS, I would like to confirm the following:

  1. Will it be supported? I found different information on commvault’s documentation.. which would be correct? see below.
  1. If supported, I see that hardware snapshots are available only for non-rac oracle DBs. Is this correct? Does it matter if DB is ASM or FS? (storage system is IBM FS7200, which I found to be compatible with Intellisnap)
  1. If using hardware snapshots, would MediaAgent need to be also AIX? and would it need to have the DB engine installed too? (or would the db engine only be required for instant clones?
  1. If hardware snapshots are not supported for some of the combinations, would it work using block-level backups? In that case, would MediaAgents need to be AIX?
  1. In our past experience: since all BDs were ASM (and hardware snapshots were not supported), we attached snapshot-capable volumes to the DB server as LVM and performed an Oracle Image copy of the databases to that LVM. Will this work for AIX? Do the snapshot-capable volumes need to be of any specific type (like LVM on linux)?
  1. Last question - in this environment, some DBs does not use ARCHIVE LOGS. They are disabled. Will everything asked before still work in that case?

Thanks for the help!

Regards,

Sergio

 

 

 

Hi @Sergio V 

 

Please find my answers inline to your questions below 

 

  1. Will it be supported? I found different information on commvault’s documentation.. which would be correct? see below.

 

Commvault : Follow the expert documentation and its listed as supported.

 

  1. If supported, I see that hardware snapshots are available only for non-rac oracle DBs. Is this correct? Does it matter if DB is ASM or FS? (storage system is IBM FS7200, which I found to be compatible with Intellisnap)

Commvault : Ibm FS7200 is not listed under supported version

Link → https://documentation.commvault.com/2022e/expert/33674_system_requirements_for_ibm_flashsystem_storage_array.html

 

 

  1. If using hardware snapshots, would MediaAgent need to be also AIX? and would it need to have the DB engine installed too? (or would the db engine only be required for instant clones?

Commvault : Media agent component needs to be installed on the client / proxy (if used). A data transfer MA could be an supported OS

  1. If hardware snapshots are not supported for some of the combinations, would it work using block-level backups? In that case, would MediaAgents need to be AIX?

Commvault : Yes, Blocklevel is supported on all the AIX version which are part of the system requirement page → https://documentation.commvault.com/2022e/expert/3044_oracle_system_requirements.html

  1. In our past experience: since all BDs were ASM (and hardware snapshots were not supported), we attached snapshot-capable volumes to the DB server as LVM and performed an Oracle Image copy of the databases to that LVM. Will this work for AIX? Do the snapshot-capable volumes need to be of any specific type (like LVM on linux)?

Commvault : This needs to be review before confirming if its supported

 

  1. Last question - in this environment, some DBs does not use ARCHIVE LOGS. They are disabled. Will everything asked before still work in that case?

Commvault : Online backups / Snapshots could be taken only when the database is in archivelogmode 

For the databases that are in noarchivelogmode you could use offline backup

 

Would recommend to engage professional services to have the combination reviewed individually and assist you design a best solution which suits your exact requirements.

 

Regards,

Gowri shankar

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings