Using VERITAS NetBackup to Back Up and Restore Oracle Disk Manager Files

Oracle allocates Oracle Disk Manager files with contiguous extent layouts for good database performance. When you back up your database using VERITAS NetBackup, extent attributes are backed up automatically. When you restore database files they are allocated using these extent attributes. If you are using Oracle RMAN's conventional backup method with any backup software, datafiles are also restored with the proper extent layouts.

If you are not using NetBackup or you are using RMAN's "proxy copy" backup method with a backup software other than NetBackup, the extent attributes may not be backed up. To ensure the restored datafiles have proper extent layouts, preallocate the lost datafiles using the odmmkfile command. This command preallocates contiguous space for files prior to restoring them. Refer to the odmmkfile(1M) manual page for more information.

Example

To preallocate an Oracle datafile with size 100 M, assuming the Oracle database block size is 8K use the odmmkfile command and enter: