To amplify what Wanda has already said about archiving products, I've been 
researching one from FileTek that has a ton of functionality.  One bit relevant 
to this discussion is the ability to actually do archiving directly from 
Oracle.  I don't know all the details, but this could start a pursuit for you.

One other thing about long term database archival is to export the required 
data periodically to flat CSV (or CSV like) files and save those away.  Worst 
case one can open these in a program like Excel and find the information.  
Brute force, very close to microfiche but possibly effective.

Kelly Lipp
Chief Technology Officer
www.storserver.com
719-266-8777 x7105
STORServer solves your data backup challenges. 
Once and for all.

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
Prather, Wanda
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 7:21 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] PA-RISC system shelf life

The TDP for Oracle is just a connector/driver; it's actually Oracle RMAN that 
is selecting the data out of the data base on a backup, and writing it back to 
the DB on restore.  So if you have issues restoring from PA-RISC to Itanium, 
that is actually a question for Oracle rather than TSM.

But the answer to your question is NO.  Don't plan on any server working for 20 
years.
TSM will happily store the data, because you can keep migrating it from one 
type of storage media to the next.
But besides the question of keeping the server physically working, you will be 
reliant on the version of Oracle you have installed on it.
If your restore fails (and again, it's RMAN handling the DB, not TSM), you 
aren't going to be able to get assistance from Oracle (or anybody else).

I would also point out, if you have a requirement to keep the data for 20 
years, it's probably not just 1 copy of the data- it's probably many copies 
over the years.  If you do need to recover something 10 years from now, how are 
you going to FIND it?  Restore every copy sequentially until you find what 
you're looking for?

The way to handle legal retention of that sort of stuff is with one of the 
archiving products.  (Tivoli has one, and there are others that use TSM as the 
backstore).  They not only put the data out in a machine-independent form, they 
index it so you have a clue of finding it in 10 years.  

Barring implementation of an archiving system (which is not without cost), you 
need to have your DBA's set up some sort of periodic dump to a non-DB dependent 
format (e.g. an ASCII text flat file) and archive that. 

W

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
Thomas Denier
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 4:41 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] PA-RISC system shelf life

-----Duane Ochs wrote: -----

>Thomas,
>Did you perform a TDP backup of the Oracle database to TSM?
>Or use a native oracle dump and backup the dump ?

The backups were done with the software Tivoli used to
market as TDP for Oracle, and now markets as part of
TSM for Databases.