Backup/ Receovery Alternatives

[totradovec]

We are running an Oracle 8.1.7.4 Production Database on an HP Unix platform and are running nightly exports (which are backed up to tape) and mirror all of our production server hard drives.

We are not running in Archive Log mode.
We are not perfoming 'cold backups'.

Under the current configuration, if a hard drive fails, we can have it hot swapped out. In the event we had a data corruption error, we could recover from the prev. days export.

What specifically are we not protected from?

[davey23uk]

you lose everything one minute before the export starts - you have lost a whole nights data.

Is that something you can deal with from a business perspective?

(p.s. export is not a backup method, that will get drummed into a thousand times here)

[totradovec]

Thanks!

[marist89]

http://marist89.blogspot.com/2005/05/backup-top-11.html

[stmontgo]

beyond not being able to do point in time recovery an import to restore can be slooooooowww.

[adewri]

I don't get it. Why do people even consider export/import as backup option? Is it mentioned anywhere in the backup manual. Where did this thing start from...?

Export/Import Oracle utilities are to be used only and only for data movement, but definitely not for backup.

[adewri]

Here in the backup and concept manuals also it clearly mentions that export/import is useful for logical backups of RMAN recovery catalog.
It also mentions that exports are not a substitute for whole database backup.

For reference.

[stmontgo]

this doc is dated but it's still like real good. Maybe it's not complete but can your db tolerate these types of failures...hmmm?