Structure-Retaining Database Copy (SAP Library - SAP Database Guide: Oracle (BC-DB-ORA-DBA))

Structure-Retaining Database Copy

Use

With BRBACKUP you can make a copy of the Oracle database files with exactly the same directory structure. You can use this type of database copy to:

Generate a test system from a production system

Set up a Standby Database.

Have a database backup available that saves you the restore during a recovery. In this case the Oracle Home directory is renamed as the new Oracle Home directory of the database copy. The copied files are then the current files and you can apply the offline redo log files directly.

Change the location of the database files. Database copy is the only way of moving database files between the file system and raw devices using BRBACKUP.

Prerequisites

You must create the following directories on the target database:

sapdata directories

sapbackup directory

origlogA, origlogB, mirrlogA, mirrlogB directories of the online redo log files

The corresponding subdirectories are created automatically during copying.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

Example

/oracle/C11/sapdata2/stabd_1/stabd.data1 is copied to
/oracle/C12/sapdata2/stabd_1/stabd.data1

Caution

Since this is a one-to-one copy, software compression is not possible.

Activities

To copy the database, you have to define the name of the new database home directory (of the database copy) in the init<DBSID>.sap profile parameter new_db_home (for local disks) or stage_db_home (for remote disks). Also set the parameter backup_dev_type to disk_copy|disk_standby|stage_copy|stage_standby or call up BRBACKUP with the relevant command option, for example, brbackup -d|-device disk_copy.

Note

Under Windows, the sapdata directories can be distributed across several drives. When you make the copy, you can retain this distribution by specifying the appropriate target drives. For more information, see the BRBACKUP parameter m|-mode.