We're running Oracle on Solaris.  We don't use rman either.  

We backup the os filesystems to disk but skip the Oracle dbf files using
directives in .nsr files.  Once a month (this Friday in fact) we shut
down Oracle and using a shell script rename the .nsr files so they're
ignored by Networker and backup everything cold (at the same time we're
doing that with the Exchange server and several SQL Servers as well).
When the backup is done another shell script renames the directive files
back to .nsr.  The rest of the month we simply backup the Archive Log
files.  This allows us to restore Oracle to any point in time.  We also
use the application software (MK ERP) that uses Oracle as its DB to dump
the full DB to text files every night and those get backed up by the
regular backup process.  We have enough disk space for 4-5 days of those
text dumps.

One caveat is that you have to keep your eyes on the Archive Log files
as they can build up quickly and run out of space.  I have a cron job
that checks the space on the Archive Log filesystems every 20 minutes
and once it reaches 70% full initiates a special backup and delete of
them.

It helps that I'm the sys admin for Solaris, MK, Oracle and Networker so
I don't have to worry about others doing their job for me to do my job.
Also, our Oracle DB is relatively small and simple compared to many
others.

Dave Werth
Garmin AT, Inc.
Salem, Oregon
-----Original Message-----
From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU] On
Behalf Of Yard, John
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 10:34 AM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: [Networker] Oracle Backups w/o rman

I have a Legato 7.4.1 system
on AIX 5.3 which backups up a
number of Oracle databases.

Our strategy is to backup the Oracle 
databases to disk , then backup the 
Oracle backup os files to tape, then 
delete the oracle backups. 

In addition we backup the os filesystems 
to tape . If I backup the oracle 
file systems to Legato I will have a 
massive duplication of data. Since Oracle 
is not being terminated, these backups are
not valid for recovery, yet I need a structure
for the dba to recover into if we were to lose
a disk.

I am sure there is documentation in
respect to this issue, can this group 
suggest some starting points ? Comments ?

Thank You,

JYard
UCLA   

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