RMAN database set-up

[dklloyd]

Just to add to my learning curve, I need to set-up an RMAN instance in its own database on the same UNIX box as the database(s) it is going serve.
All the documentation I have read (tons of it!) have gone through the procedure from creating the recovery catalog but none seem to describe the creation of the database itself and what options/parameters/mode even it should have as its own environment. I have the databases in a RAID 5 set so should I create a mirrored file system on what is the system disk and create it there?
Any advise would be greatly appreciated folks...

Dave

 

[carp]

What I have done when I have multiple databases on the same server is to make them mutually supportive; that is, the recovery catalog for database A is stored in database B and vice versa. Creating another instance soaks up resources that your production databases might be able to use to better advantage. If you have a development/test database available, it would probably be a good idea to put the initial catalog(s) in there just so you could safely experiment with it - then create the catalog(s) someplace a little more stable.

 

[dklloyd]

Thanks Carp for the advice on this. Things are rather volatile at present with the test databases as the live version has yet to go live so databases are being dropped & created all over the place, hence wanting it on its own. I'll speak to our system supplier to see if they can't keep something stable for a while.

Thanks again

dklloyd

 

[carp]

The alternative is to create the smallest instance/database possible and just use this as a "master recovery" database that will serve as a recovery platform for all of your other databases. If you choose this route, be sure to set up and maintain a recovery catalog of this database in one of your other databases. Otherwise, if the master recovery database breaks, you are in jeaprody of not being able to fully recover your production databases!

 

[dklloyd]

Hi again
Well I gave creation of a seperate database a go and things appear to have gone fine, however I noticed that the create database command created the default control files as specified in the init.ora file although I created a initRMAN.ora file which I thought the system would pick up by default. None of the other database startup programs specify a pfile so I need to know how I can get the startup to choose the initRMAN.ora instead.
One additional note is that one of the 1st statements in the initRMAN.ora file is ifile =configRMAN.ora which contains the control_files statement.
Any help would be appreciated.

 

[carp]

By default, when you issue the STARTUP command, Oracle will take the value of the environment parameter ORACLE_SID, prepend "init" and append ".ora" to this value, then look in the ADMIN subdirectory for a file with that name. If it finds it, then it will proceed with the startup routine. Otherwise, it issues an error. Therefore, I suspect your other database startup programs are setting ORACLE_SID and then proceeding with the STARTUP command.