Oracle Environment Planning
Before you deploy Veeam Plug-in, mind the following requirements and limitations:
- Oracle Temp Tablespace
- Compression
- Scheduling
- Oracle RAC
- Backup File Naming
- Autobackup File Naming
- Parallel Processing
- Additional Files to Back Up
- Multiple Oracle Version on the Server
- Disable Veeam Explorer Processing
Veeam performs SQL queries on the Oracle database to collect statistical information about the RMAN job process. As with any other SQL query, Oracle can decide based on RAM and other resource availability to use Oracle Temp Tablespace for these queries.
Veeam Plug-in uses built-in compression functionality of Veeam Backup & Replication. If you use it in combination with Oracle RMAN integrated compression (BACKUP AS COMPRESSED commands), it can slow down processing. Change your Oracle RMAN scripts accordingly.
If you want to disable compression of Veeam Backup & Replication, do the following:
- Open the /opt/veeam/VeeamPluginforOracleRMAN/veeam_config.xml file with a text editor.
- Find the <AgentParams /> line and add the following parameter:
<AgentParams compression="NoCompression" /> |
You can schedule backup processes with all Oracle RMAN relevant scheduling options like Cron, Windows Task Scheduler, UC4 and TWS.
Also, you can schedule and run existing Oracle RMAN backup scripts within image-level or file-level backup job of Veeam Backup & Replication or Veeam Agent. For details, see Pre-Freeze and Post-Thaw Scripts.
- It is recommended to install Veeam Plug-in on each RAC server that is responsible for the backup operations. If the plug-in is not installed on all clusters, the backup may fail when RMAN selects another node.
- Parallel processing of nodes is not supported. Backup will be performed only from one node.
- On some new versions of Oracle Database, when you deploy RAC, Oracle does not add a record about RAC database instances in the oratab file. That is why Veeam Plug-in cannot detect these instances when you configure the plug-in. To configure the plug-in, you must manually add the record about each RAC database instance in the oratab file.
The plug-in configuration wizard reads out the repositoryID parameter from the plug-in configuration file (/opt/veeam/VeeamPluginforOracleRMAN/veeam_config.xml). In the veeam_config.xml file, the repository ID is stored in the following format: repositoryID=“xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx”.
To name backup files, Veeam Plug-in uses the following schema by default:
CONFIGURE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE sbt PARMS 'SBT_LIBRARY=/opt/veeam/VeeamPluginforOracleRMAN/libOracleRMANPlugin.so’ FORMAT 'xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/RMAN_%I_%d_%T_%U.vab’; |
- If you select one repository and disable RMAN copy processing:
You must use the .vab postfix on any backup files created on the Veeam backup repository. Otherwise, Veeam tools will not be able to identify the backup files and perform backup import and other functions. It is recommended to implement the described above naming rules and use the repository ID postfix.
- If you select multiple Veeam repositories and disable RMAN copy processing:
Backup files will be read by default from the first selected repository. Same naming rules apply as in the single repository scenario.
- If you select multiple Veeam backup repositories and enable RMAN copy processing:
You must use the .vab postfix on any backup files created on a Veeam backup repository. Otherwise, Veeam tools will not be able to identify the backup files and perform backup import and other functions. It is recommended to implement the described above naming rules and use the repository ID postfix.
Also, you must use the repository ID with the “/” sign as a prefix for the backup file names (see the example above). This allows RMAN to directly access the requested backup file on one of the copy extents.
If you use the Controlfile Autobackup option, the Veeam Plug-in configuration wizard creates the following RMAN configuration entry:
CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP FORMAT FOR DEVICE TYPE SBT |
The repository ID prefix is used mainly for RMAN Copy processing. The prefix allows RMAN to access the backup file on the correct repository. It is recommended to use “_RMAN_AUTOBACKUP” as a part of the control file name when autobackup is enabled.
If you enable autobackup after configuring Veeam Plug-in, you can start the configuration wizard again. The control file naming options will be set to defaults.
Veeam Plug-in supports parallel backup processing for up to 4 Veeam repositories or scale-out backup repositories. In the plug-in configuration wizard, if you select more than one repository, the parallelism functionality will be enabled automatically.
Note that your Oracle Enterprise Edition must be able to use RMAN parallel processing.
Tip: |
If you want to recover the Veeam Plug-in job folder to a specific point in time state, you can use Storage Replication (plus import) or the File Backup to Tape job of Veeam Backup & Replication. |
Oracle Home
- It is recommended to back up the Oracle home folder in addition to RMAN backups. You can back it up with Veeam Backup & Replication or Veeam Agents.
- If the Oracle home folder is on a shared disk, you can use the file-level backup functionality of Veeam Agent for Linux. Alternatively, you can copy the Oracle home folder to a non-shared disk before the backup.
Oracle Recovery Catalog
You can back up the Oracle Recovery Catalog with Veeam Plug-in on the Recovery Catalog server according to the Oracle procedures. To do that, see the Managing a Recovery Catalog section of the Database Backup and Recovery User's Guide.
Oracle Server for Disaster Recovery
To perform full backup of the Oracle server, you can use the image-level backup functionality of Veeam Backup & Replication or Veeam Agents.
Veeam Plug-in for RMAN Configuration
You can back up the Veeam Plug-in configuration file. The file is located in the following directory:
- [Linux]: /opt/veeam/VeeamPluginforOracleRMAN/veeam_config.xml
- [Windows]: %PROGRAMFILES%\Veeam\VeeamPluginforOracleRMAN\veeam_config.xml
Limitation
In the current version, Veeam Plug-in for Oracle RMAN does not support backup of Oracle Data Guard. Use Veeam Backup & Replication to back up Oracle Data Guard.
Multiple Oracle Versions on One Server
Multiple Oracle Database versions on the same server are supported only for Linux based operating systems.
Disable Veeam Explorer Processing
To disable Veeam Explorer based restore for specific Oracle servers:
- [Linux] Log in as a user with the Oracle Administrator rights and create the following empty file: /etc/veeam/disablerestore
- [Windows] On the Veeam Backup & Replication server, create an XML file in the following directory: %ProgramData%\Veeam\Backup\OracleExplorer\config.xml. The XML file must contain the following entries:
<Veeam> <OracleExplorer> <Oracle RestoreStopperFilePath="c:\1\disablerestore"/> </OracleExplorer> </Veeam> |