Backup of SAP/Oracle VM using AVVI

[Dejan_R]

Hello,

We have a production SAP server using Oracle as a DB.

The server is a VMware virtual machine on a Windows 2008 R2 OS platform.

The question is, is it safe to backup the whole machine (without GRT enabled) using AVVI? Is this something that Symantec can vouch for? Obviously we do not want to risk any possible issues (DB corruptions, VM availability etc).

Oracle version is 11.2.0.3, and as I can see the Oracle VSS Writer is stable without any errors. The database is in ARCHIVELOG mode.

The full machine backup will be performed on a weekly basis for DR purposes.

There is already a daily DB backup using BRBACKUP tool in place picked up on a tape by Symantec RAWS.

Thanks,

Dejan

[teiva-boy]

By doing this, you would get a crash consistant backup of the VM.  It would work, but you risk when restoring the VM, a server state that is no different than pulling the power plug on the server, and powering it back on.  The chance for corruption.

I would recommend if you did this....  Is a daily backup of the SAP instance, and a weekly backup of the VM.  This way you could ensure an application consistant backup of the data.  But also be able to restore the VM as needed, and restore an up-to-date copy of the application data as needed.

[pkh]

If you want to backup your SAP database by backing the individual Oracle databases.  Take note of this

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/can-i-backup-sap-database-sql-or-oracle-agent

[Dejan_R]

Thanks for your replies, as I've mentioned there is already a separate SAP backup performed on a daily bases.

My concern was in terms of the possibility for VMware backup itself to damage the DB or to make it inaccessible in any way...

[teiva-boy]

To your inquiry, the VMware backup would not damage anything.  However, there is a chance that the DB's wouldn't be recoverable, or you would have some lost transactions.  It's as if you took a server, and unplugged the power.  Most often things are fine, but you never know...