Optimize Oracle backup time duration Oracle Tips by Burleson Consulting

Whether you are doing an Oracle hot backup or a cold backup, it’s important to minimize the time required to execute the backups.

 

Use parallel backup threads - The downtime for any Oracle (hot or cold) depends on the speed of your disks and the disk-to-tape ratio.  For example, if I have 50 disks and 50 tape devices, you can do a full backup of a 500 gig database in less than 15 minutes!  Almost all Oracle backup utilities (RMAN) allow parallel backup threads.

 

Low-DML scheduling - For hot backups, it’s important to schedule the backup during low-DML times to minimize the size of the logs and therefore speed-up recovery time.

 

Investigate Incremental Backups – Incremental backups greatly reduce the elapsed time for Oracle backups, but the mechanisms can be complex.

 

Use replication – Replication with Oracle Streams can provide multiple “live” Oracle databases, and if you use TAF, one database can be taken offline for a cold backup without impacting database availability.
 

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