cold backup and hot backup

[lgaorcl]

If I have eveyday hot backup, I don't know why I need a cold backup every week, or every month?

[marist89]

You wouldn't NEED a cold backup, but it might come in handy if your db ever goes down.

[svk]

If your application can afford a downtime for a cold backup, cold backup is not a waste.

Its uses vary from site to site. One of them is it serves as a very simple source when it comes to cloning your production dd when a week old status of data is acceptable. (Not that, cloning is otherwise impossible).

Re-starting a database is also a good by-product of a cold backup schedule !!

[marist89]

Originally posted by svk
Re-starting a database is also a good by-product of a cold backup schedule !!

If, of course, you don't mind reloading your db cache from disk. Yikes...

[lgaorcl]

Some people said that you should keep your archive log files about 15 days. Why is that? I thought you could delete your archvie log files right after you second hot backup.

[marist89]

Depends. In the perfect world, I would keep my archives from the point of my last valid cold backup. That way, I could easily recover through the last log file without messing around too much with a tape.

If you are doing hot backups all the time, and you trust your magnetic media, you don't need to keep them after the next hot backup.

[lgaorcl]

I don't get so many chance to do cold backup, at most once a couple of month. I only rely on everyday hot backup. I delete archive files every day after the new hot backup, because I don't have so much space for the archive files. And I thought that is techinically right, right? If I am wrong, please correct me!

Thanks!

[marist89]

You should be OK with that. I wouldn't even worry about taking cold backups if you are only getting them once a month.

[svk]

how often do you back up the archive logs ?

[lgaorcl]

Thank you!
I had another question here, hopefully you can help me out here too!

One of my databases generates archive files about 6-8 gig every day, but I watch the space change of database files, only increase about 30 to 50 mb every day. How could you explain this?

Thank you!

Lisa