rolling a databse back 1

[joeythelips]

Hi,

I have an oracle 8i database which is being used for development purposes

Every night i take an export of the database. I also take a cold backup of the database to tape.

My developers have requested that i be able to roll the database back to the state it was in for example 3 days ago. I have proposed running an import script but this takes 5 hours.

Could someone tell me the quickest way to get the data back to the state it was in immediately after a cold backup which i can recover off tape, or would my import script be the best option?

Thanks

Joe

p.s the db is in archivelog mode

 

[SantaMufasa]

Joey,

If you want a database to be at the state from of a cold backup, you just restore the cold backup files and "START". You don't even need a "point-in-time" recovery since you want the database to be at the time of backup, right?

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA @ 15:59 (09Sep04) UTC (aka "GMT" and "Zulu"), 08:59 (09Sep04) Mountain Time)

 

[joeythelips]

Dave,

could you slarify by what you mean by 'START' please.

Thanks

Joe

 

[SantaMufasa]

Joey,

If you truly want to place your database back to its state at the time you took your last cold backup, here's what your do:

1) Restore to their native, running locations ALL files from the cold backup, which should include a) all database data files (that store data for you tablespaces including your SYSTEM, RBS, TEMP, and application-tablespace files), b) on-line redo log files, and c) control files. Although your init<SID>.ora file is not considered a database file, you will need one, preferrably the one you are used to.

2) "sqlplus /nolog", "connect / as sysdba", "start".

Let us know if this answers your questions.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA @ 16:47 (09Sep04) UTC (aka "GMT" and "Zulu"), 09:47 (09Sep04) Mountain Time)

 

[joeythelips]

Dave,

thanks for that. As usual. You are very helpful

Joe

 

[KenCunningham]

Dave - shouldn't "start" be "startup"?

 

[SantaMufasa]

Absolutely, Ken...My bad...That's what I get for answering a Listener issue (requiring "start") too closely to a database issue (requiring "startup"). (Either that or my growing too old too soon.) Thanks for the good catch.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA @ 14:48 (10Sep04) UTC (aka "GMT" and "Zulu"), 07:48 (10Sep04) Mountain Time)

 

[KenCunningham]

Believe me, Dave, I know the feeling!! Have a good weekend.

 

[khobar]

Hi

just a small note if you have a sufficient hard disk space preferably in a different device you can backup all your datafiles into the disk rather than to a tape. In this way your recovery time is minimized(Recovering from hard disk will be faster than a tape).

Offcourse it depends on the backup startegy you adopt might be you can store it in harddisk backup for only 7 days and anything older than 7days you can move it to tape

regards
khobar

 

[joeythelips]

Hi,

I have enough hard disk space to hold the last 2 days data files, ctrl files and log files so that is another option for me.

Thanks everyone for you help.

Much appreciated