Oracle Database migration to a remote Data Protector cell--Best practices

Appendix F: Restore scenario: RAC Database to a Single

instance

Assume a disaster scenario where we need to restore our RAC database from cell 1 to cell2.

However, in cell 2 only one host is available. In this case, we will restore a RAC database which was

running on 4 nodes into a single instance running on a different node (in a different Data Protector

cell).

We assume the following prerequisites have been fulfilled:

• A full backup of the RAC database has been taken, and this backup has been made available to

the new cell. In our case, the tapes have inserted in the target library and have been imported.

• For this example, Control File autobackup is ON and the recovery catalog is available on the target

cell.

• The Database is called RAC and the instance on the target is called RAC1

As we can see throughout this section, the process is identical to the scenarios described in previous

sections. On the other hand, there are some RAC specific steps that need to be followed:

• We need a PFILE to startup the single instance database. This PFILE has to be edited. The

PFILE can either be created on the original RAC database (if available), or once we have restored

the SPFILE from autobackup.

• Once the PFILE is available and before we mount the database with it, following parameters need

to be changed/deleted:

– Remove all RAC specific parameters: CLUSTER_DATABASE,

CLUSTER_DATABASE_INSTANCES, and so on.

– Verify that all directories specified in the PFILE exist on the target system (do not forget the

Control Files path)

– Remove all parameters related to all RAC instances other than RAC1.

On the target system, we list the objects belonging to the imported session:

oracle@hpu015[RAC1]:/home/oracle$ omnidb -sess 2008/07/01-3

Object Name Object Type Object Status CopyID

===============================================================================

ita018:RAC1_online_del<RAC_760:658944460:1>.dbf Oracle8 Completed

ita018:RAC1_online_del<RAC_759:658944460:1>.dbf Oracle8 Completed

ita018:c-2216826430-20080701-00 Oracle8 Completed 1 (O)

ita018:RAC1_online_del<RAC_762:658948786:1>.dbf Oracle8 Completed

ita018:RAC1_online_del<RAC_763:658948786:1>.dbf Oracle8 Completed

ita018:RAC1_online_del<RAC_764:658948825:1>.dbf Oracle8 Completed

ita018:RAC1_online_del<RAC_765:658948839:1>.dbf Oracle8 Completed

ita018:c-2216826430-20080701-01 Oracle8 Completed 657 (O)

Once we the database is in NOMOUNT status, we can restore the SPFILE and Control File from autobackup:

oracle@hpu015[RAC1]:/home/oracle$ rman target / catalog rman/rman@rcat

Recovery Manager: Release 10.2.0.3.0 - Production on Wed Jul 2 12:15:03 2008

connected to target database (not started)

connected to recovery catalog database

RMAN> startup nomount

startup failed: ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters

LRM-00109: could not open parameter file '/opt/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/dbs/initRAC1.ora'