All,

We have purchased Veritas netbackup(3.4) as out enterprise backup solution.
Now we are planning to rollout the solution for oracle database backups. I
came to know that there are two solutions to backup the oracle databases.
1. BLIB - which requires Veritas database edition and Netbackup
2. Oracle agent for Netbackup: which requires Oracle agent for netbackup
and oracle catalog database (RMAN/EBU)

Now we are debating which option to go for. If any body has done any
analysis on this topic, can you please share pros and cons of each method,
with bench mark numbers (on OLTP performance impact, additional disk space
requirement, backup and recovery performance, and maitenance flexibility),
if any.

Following are some of the specific questions.
1. What is the perecentage of OLTP performance impact that BLIB option have
in mainaining the modified blocks (through storage check points). Veritas
documentation says that, file system snapshots had 15% performance
degradation on OLTP applications. BLIB's are based on storage checkpoint,
and as I understand, is logically same as the file system snapshots, and
will have the same kind of performance degradation. Is this statement
right?
2. Is there any formula to calculate the amount of additional disk space
that is required for storage checkpoint's for the BLIBs.
3. What percentage of customers using BLIB's versus Oracle extension with
RMAN.
4. If BLIB's are used, veritas backup server keeps track of all the
information required for database recovery(such as what tapes are required,
what archives are required to perform the recovery). If we use Netbackups
Oracle extension, where does such information will be stored (in the backup
server or RMAN's catalog). Does BLIB's provide any additional information .
5. Veritas claims that, BLIB's performance is much better then RMAN's
incremental backups. I want to know how better, what makes it that better.
6. How does the database recovery performance can be compared between these
2 options.
7. Lastly, can BLIB is supported to backup Oracle RDBMS version 7.3.4 and
8.0.5 on HP-UX 10.20 OS.

Your suggestions will really help us in our decision process.

I would like to hear more from customers, not from Veritas reps :)
.........Just kidding.

Thanks in advance.

Sudheer
====================================================
Sudheer Pabbatireddy
Manager, Database Systems
IEEE, Inc
Phone: (732) 562-6534
Fax: (732) 562-1727
Email: s.pabbatireddy AT ieee DOT org
====================================================