NetVault Plug-in for Oracle 11.3 - User Guide

Using the Plug-in with Oracle® RAC

Oracle RACs: an overview

Oracle® defines its Real Application Clusters (RAC) option as “support for the transparent deployment of a single database across a cluster of servers, providing fault tolerance from hardware failures or planned outages. Oracle RAC running on clusters provides Oracle’s highest level of capability in terms of availability, scalability, and low-cost computing. Oracle RAC supports mainstream business applications of all kinds. Support includes online transaction processing (OLTP), decision support systems (DSS), and Oracle’s unique ability to support mixed OLTP/DSS environments. Support also includes packaged products such as SAP, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and Oracle E*Business Suite, as well as custom applications.”

Plug‑in for Oracle provides support for a limited number of Oracle versions and platforms in a RAC environment. The installation, configuration, backup, and restore procedures differ in a multi-instance RAC environment. This topic offers specifics on how the plug-in operates in an Oracle RAC environment. It only points out the differences between the setup and usage of the plug-in in a multi-instance RAC environment vs. a single-instance or traditional non-RAC environment.

IMPORTANT: Unless outlined in the topics that follow, backups and restores performed with the plug-in for multi-instance RAC databases are the same as backups and restores performed with single-instance databases.

For a list of supported Oracle versions and platforms in a RAC environment, see the Quest NetVault Backup Compatibility Guide.

Recommended additional reading

Quest recommends that the following Oracle® RAC documentation be readily available for reference when setting up and using the plug-in in a RAC environment.

Defining a deployment strategy

Deploying Plug‑in for Oracle in a multi-instance database environment is almost identical to a single-instance database environment except that RMAN-based backups are the only available backup method for RAC databases. The plug-in is installed on one of the nodes that hosts one of the instances for the RAC-enabled database. All RMAN-based backups and restores are performed from this single installation of the plug-in. The following topics detail how the plug-in performs RMAN backups and restores in a RAC environment.