Specifying Oracle Archived Redo Log Settings

By default, Veeam Backup & Replication creates application-consistent image-level backups of VMs running the Oracle application and does not truncate redo logs after each successfully completed backup session — this allows you to restore Oracle databases using specific backups. To protect mission-critical Oracle databases, you can instruct Veeam Backup & Replication to create secondary restore points with redo logs in addition to primary image-level backups — this will allow you to restore your databases to specific points in time.

NoteS

Veeam Backup & Replication stores image-level backups and archived redo log backups in the same repository.
If Veeam Backup & Replication fails to produce a primary image-level backup, no secondary archived redo log backups will be created.

To back up Oracle archived redo logs periodically, do the following:

Switch to the Oracle tab and in the Backup logs every field, specify how frequently you want archived redo logs to be backed up. The maximum field value is 480 minutes.
In the Retain log backups section, choose either of the following options:

Select the Until the corresponding image-level backup is deleted option if you want to remove archived redo log backups and the related image-level backups at the same time, according to the retention policy settings specified at step 4.
Select the Keep only last <N> days of log backups if you want to retain archived redo log backups for a specific time period, regardless of the retention policy settings specified for image-level backups. Note that archived redo logs backups must always be retained for a longer period than image-level backups.

For more information on how Veeam Backup & Replication retains archived redo logs, see the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, section Retention for Archived Log Backup.

In the Log shipping servers section, decide whether you want to use a specific server to transfer archived redo logs backups or let Veeam Backup & Replication choose it automatically to reduce the load on the backup server.

By default, Veeam Backup & Replication automatically chooses a log shipping server for each of the processed VMs based on network settings and rules listed in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, section Log Shipping Servers. You can also manually limit the list of machines that may be used as log shipping servers — to do that, click Choose, select the Use the specified servers only option and then select check boxes next to the necessary servers.

For a server to be displayed in the list of available log shipping servers, it must be added to the backup infrastructure as described in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, sections Adding Microsoft Windows Servers and Adding Linux Servers. Keep in mind that the list will also include Linux servers added to the backup infrastructure; however, Linux servers cannot be used as log shipping servers for processing Windows-based VMs due to technical limitations in the current version.

TipS

It is recommended that you choose at least 2 log shipping servers for load balancing and high availability purposes.
It is recommended that you do not choose servers that are engaged in permanent tasks consuming resources (such as WAN accelerators or backup servers).

Configuring Access to Oracle Application

To access databases of the processed VM running the Oracle application, Veeam Backup & Replication uses accounts with SYSDBA privileges. By default, the account specified for accessing the VM guest OS is used. To change this behavior, you can choose another account from the Specify Oracle account with SYSDBA privileges drop-down list on the Oracle tab.

For an account to be displayed in the Credentials list, it must be added to the Credentials Manager as described in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, section Credentials Manager. If you have not added the necessary account to the Credentials Manager beforehand, you can do it without closing the New Job wizard. To do that, click either the Manage accounts link or the Add button, and specify the user name, password and description in the Credentials window.

Note

[For Windows-based machines] Make sure you add the %ORACLE_HOME%\bin variable to the environmental path variable on the machine with your Oracle database.

Managing Archived Redo Logs Removal Settings

Oracle archived redo logs contains information on all changes made to Oracle databases. By default, Veeam Backup & Replication does not remove archived logs on the VM running the Oracle application. This behavior is recommended for databases in the NOARCHIVELOG mode. If a database is configured in the ARCHIVELOG mode, archived logs may grow large and increase the storage space consumption significantly. To instruct Veeam Backup & Replication to delete archived redo logs, switch to the Oracle tab and in the Archived logs section, choose either of the following options, specify:

Select the Delete logs older than <N> hours option to remove all archived logs that were created earlier than the specified time period.
Select the Delete logs over <N> GB option to remove archived logs of a specific database their size has breached the specified threshold.

Keep in mind that Veeam Backup & Replication removes archived redo logs only if the backup job completes successfully.

Oracle Archived Redo Log Settings