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Selecting Volumes with External ToolsLocate this document in the navigation structure

Prerequisites

The external tool that you use for volume selection must make sure that only non-locked volumes are suggested for backup. Otherwise, BRBACKUP or BRARCHIVE terminate if they do not find enough free volumes. Make sure that initialized volumes are available for the backup.

Context

You can also use external tools to determine the names of the volumes relevant for the Oracle backup. This might involve an external volume management system or simply a shell script. You can do this if you have deactivated BRBACKUP or BRARCHIVE automatic volume management by calling them with the option -v. However, the expiration period of the volumes is checked anyway.

Procedure


  1. Determine whether the required expiration period has been configured in profile parameter expir_period. Change the value if necessary.

  2. Start BRBACKUP or BRARCHIVE with the option -v <volume list>. Before starting the backup, BRBACKUP or BRARCHIVE checks whether the mounted volumes agree with those in the volume list and whether the expiration period has expired.

    BRBACKUP or BRARCHIVE only use the volumes listed with option -v for one backup.

    You can select the volume names yourself by defining them in the call with the option -v|-volume (using the naming convention, for example, as suggested for automatic volume management).

    Example

    brbackup -v C11B141,C11B142,C11B143

    brarchive -ssd -v C11A141,C11A142

    You can also give the volumes other names. One option would be to include the day of the backup in the volume names. BRBACKUP or BRARCHIVE can use the following sample script to assign the volume names to the day of the month on which the backup was started.

    Example

    The name <DBSID><X><dd><n> is made up of:

    DBSID = ORACLE_SID (name of the database instance)

    X = A for BRARCHIVE or X = B for BRBACKUP

    dd = day of month

    n = next volume number within one backup

    Here is the script:

    day=`date | cut -f 3 -d " "` if [ ${day} -le 9 ]; then day=`echo 0${day}`; fi brbackup -v C11B${day}1,C11B${day}2,C11B${day}3 -c

    brarchive -ssd -v C11A${day}1,C11A${day}2 -c