1. What are the absolutly necessary activities in my daily Oracle database administration?
At least you should consider the 'ABC' of Oracle database administration:
- A)rchivelogs backups
Save the Archivelogs at least once a day. The archivelogs contain all the changes made to the database. In case of a media failure this information is needed to recover your database.
Your database has to be in archivelogmode otherwise no archivelog is written and in case of a media failure you loose all changes since the last backup.
Avoid the loss of even one archivelog. In case of a media failure you are only able to recover your DB up to the point in time after the last backup to which a continous chain of archivelogs is available, starting with the the beginning of the backup. Even if only one datafile is lost and cannot be recovered to the current point in time also the changes to ALL other files are lost, too.
Use the SAP tools for Archivelog backups because they log their activity to well defined logs so that efficient support can be given to you.
- B)ackups of the database
Perform a backup at least once a day. In case of a media failure the lost files have to be restored from the backup. The backup is the starting point of the recovery. The more current the backup is, the less downtime you have during recovery.
Use the SAP tools for Archivelog backups because they log their activity to well defined logs so that efficient support can be given to you.
- C)onsistency checks
Hardware failures may make parts of the data stored in your database unreadable. These corruptions are only detected when you access exactly the corrupted data. Usually the corrupted data is lost if you do not regularly check for corruptions. If you detect a corruption and have a backup available from before the last successful corruption check, a restore of the corrupted files from this backup and a recovery will solve the problem.
There have been several escalations in the past because customers didn´t regularly perform a corruption check, so PERFORM CORRUPTION CHECKS regularly!
For more details have a look on FAQ Note 540463 about Consistency Checks with which corruptions can be detected.
2. How am I informed about mission critical bugs in Oracle software or SAP software for Oracle DB administration?
As on all other components Oracle related severe bugs are published as Hot News. Hot News are displayed e.g. in
- SAP Net R/3 Frontend when you scroll down in the popup that is displayed directly after login.
Especially for the Oracle related bugs and problems there is a subset of these notes collected in note 540477.
It is one of the standard system administration tasks to check the Hot News regularly and to apply the solution or workaround if the prerequisites of the particular note are fullfilled.
There have been several escalations in the past because customers didn´t read the Hot News, so regularly check the Hot News.
3. Where do I get patches for Oracle software or SAP software for Oracle DB administration?
You have to distinguish between two main different parts of patches in the Oracle environment:
- Patches for the Oracle executables
There are patchsets (collection of many patches) and bugfixes (for single or few bugs).
For the latest available patchset for your platform search for the phrase 'current patchset'.
Details for the download can be found in the particular notes.
- Patches for the SAP tools (sapdba, brconnect, brbackup, brarchive etc) to administrate the Oracle database.
Details for the download can be found in note 12741.
4. What are the most important sources of information I can use when I have an Oracle problem or question?
The most important and helpful sources of information in case of an Oracle problem or a problem with a SAP tool for administration of an Oracle DB are:
- SAP online documentation
delivered with all Installation packages or available via
http://help.sap.com
- Oracle Documentation CD
delivered with all Installation packages
- notes on service marketplace
- documents at http://service.sap.com/dbaora