Solution 215981 : Cold Backup of Oracle using Volume Manager Snapshot

Here is the procedure to create a snapshot of a volume containing an Oracle
database. This assumes the database is built on a file system :

1) vxassist -g  snapstart 

2) When the snapstart operation is complete and the mirror is in the SNAPDONE
state for the newly created plex (this can be determined through vxprint -ht
), find a time to complete the snapshot operation. This is the
point where you would bring down the oracle db and kick the users out. When
Oracle is down, execute this command:

# vxassist -g  snapshot  

3) When this operation is finished, you can bring Oracle online and then perform
an fsck of the snapshot:

# fsck -y /dev/vx/rdsk//

4) Next, backup the snapshot volume using your data backup utility and then the
snapshot can be removed using:

# vxedit -g  -rf rm 

Look at the following example:

bigwillie# vxprint -g bigdg -ht oracle
V  NAME         USETYPE      KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   READPOL   PREFPLEX
PL NAME         VOLUME       KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   LAYOUT    NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME         PLEX         DISK     DISKOFFS LENGTH   [COL/]OFF DEVICE   MODE

v  oracle       fsgen        ENABLED  ACTIVE   102400   SELECT    -
pl oracle-01    oracle       ENABLED  ACTIVE   104139   CONCAT    -        RW
sd bigdg13-01   oracle-01    bigdg13  0        104139   0         c2t26d0  ENA
pl oracle-02    oracle       ENABLED  ACTIVE   104139   CONCAT    -        RW
sd bigdg11-02   oracle-02    bigdg11  64638    104139   0         c2t24d0  ENA
bigwillie# vxassist -g bigdg snapstart oracle
bigwillie# df -k /oraclemnt
Filesystem            kbytes    used   avail capacity  Mounted on
/dev/vx/dsk/bigdg/oracle
                      51200    1117   46960     3%    /oraclemnt
bigwillie# umount /oraclemnt
bigwillie# vxprint -g bigdg -ht oracle
V  NAME         USETYPE      KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   READPOL   PREFPLEX
PL NAME         VOLUME       KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   LAYOUT    NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME         PLEX         DISK     DISKOFFS LENGTH   [COL/]OFF DEVICE   MODE

v  oracle       fsgen        ENABLED  ACTIVE   102400   SELECT    -
pl oracle-01    oracle       ENABLED  ACTIVE   104139   CONCAT    -        RW
sd bigdg13-01   oracle-01    bigdg13  0        104139   0         c2t26d0  ENA
pl oracle-02    oracle       ENABLED  ACTIVE   104139   CONCAT    -        RW
sd bigdg11-02   oracle-02    bigdg11  64638    104139   0         c2t24d0  ENA
pl oracle-03    oracle       ENABLED  SNAPDONE 104139   CONCAT    -        WO
sd bigdg05-02   oracle-03    bigdg05  208278   104139   0         c2t19d0  ENA
bigwillie# vxassist -g bigdg snapshot oracle oraclesnap
bigwillie# vxprint -g bigdg -ht oracle oraclesnap
V  NAME         USETYPE      KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   READPOL   PREFPLEX
PL NAME         VOLUME       KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   LAYOUT    NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME         PLEX         DISK     DISKOFFS LENGTH   [COL/]OFF DEVICE   MODE

v  oracle       fsgen        ENABLED  ACTIVE   102400   SELECT    -
pl oracle-01    oracle       ENABLED  ACTIVE   104139   CONCAT    -        RW
sd bigdg13-01   oracle-01    bigdg13  0        104139   0         c2t26d0  ENA
pl oracle-02    oracle       ENABLED  ACTIVE   104139   CONCAT    -        RW
sd bigdg11-02   oracle-02    bigdg11  64638    104139   0         c2t24d0  ENA

v  oraclesnap   fsgen        ENABLED  ACTIVE   102400   ROUND     -
pl oraclesnap-01 oraclesnap  ENABLED  ACTIVE   104139   CONCAT    -        RW
sd bigdg05-02   oraclesnap-01 bigdg05 208278   104139   0         c2t19d0  ENA
bigwillie# mount /dev/vx/dsk/bigdg/oracle /oraclemnt
bigwillie# fsck -y /dev/vx/rdsk/bigdg/oraclesnap
file system is clean - log replay is not required
bigwillie#

-Backup up the /dev/vx/rdsk/bigdg/oracle device-

bigwillie# vxedit -g bigdg -rf rm oraclesnap