UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Hi, We have two Sun M5000 systems. A is Oracle server and B is testing server. There are nine Solaris 10 zones set on A. SAN is connecting to A with ZFS configuration.

Now we want to set B to be a backup server of A and make the two as identical as possible. No VERITAS cluster, no Solaris cluster, and no Oracle RAC since we don't have the budget to pay more Oracle licenses.

Here is my plan:
(1) Set XSCF on B according to settings on A.
(2) Load Solaris 10 global zone on B.
(3) Backup Solaris 10 global zone on A, and restore the backup on B by using NetBackup.
(4) Copy local zones from A, and paste them to B.
(5) Set FC HBA on B and configure SAN zone to connect to B.
(6) Set ZFS on B according to A's ZFS.

How to solve IP conflict issue?
(1) Disconnect B from LAN.
(2) Transfer A's local zones to B under B console.
(3) Change IP addresses of local zones on B.

Is this plan workable? Any potential issues? Any suggestions? Please help.

Thank you in advance!

Hi aixlover:
I feel that you have miss some details to helpyou. For example you have mention Oracle RAC, ZFS and other.. but what about the flavor/release of you oracle BD (standard / enterprise).
Also are "far" the other M5K? or are a metro lan. I assumed that you have two storage so every M5K have their own lun.

Have you thought about Oracle Stand-by DB?
Do you have dns (internal one) to make smooth transition from M5K-A to M5K-B without the mess of IP address?

The NBU is enterprise 6.5X or greater? San Option/?

Since you miss all that I will told you have I have done!
First of all I you have UFS for boot; SVM to make easy and fast backups to the other M5K.
If zones resides on ZFS you can use zfs snapshots.
For one Oracle BD 10R2 (without stand-by) I made the following. take the secondary disk off-mirror to the other equipment. Make a SVM mirror so I have perfectly 4 disk with the exact data.
After that setup solaris containers and via zonecfg -z ZoneName export -f ZoneName.wrk so easly can make clones of the zones.

Since I don't have sun availability suite or other fancy sfw. I made a script with rsync that made copies of all datafiles and other oracle stuff to the clone zone. Yes, It works without having to shutdown the oracle engine since it copies at byte level.

Of course; to make fail proof you must do almost do one copy with the engine down (but since I make rsync every hour ; this one takes seconds). With std edition you can have the clone zone shutdown; rsync archives ; boot the zone close; open the BD in standby mode apply archives and shutdown the wall thing (container; since licenses ask to have the stand by powereoff according the licensed CPUs count). You can make funny things with RMAN but your setup will vary taking count of backup window, bd edition, acceptable downtime, lan distance / speed. etc.

Hope help you something!!

rbadillarx, Thank you very much for your reply. I just saw it. Sorry about the delayed reply.

The 2 M5k servers are on the same rack with 1 SAN array connected. NetBackup 6.5. Oracle 11. I don't know the term Oracle Stand-by DB.

I'll need to spend some more time to study your posting carefully, then write more later.

Thank you again for your helpful instruction! You are great. Sorry I can only give you one formal Thanks

Hi aixlover:
Take your time, also keep in mind that with 1 storage you have to use double luns to acomplish DR plan and nothing will help if the storage fails. If your storage have capabilities like shadow/lun cloning it will be easier (and faster).

And I don't expect nothing beyond a great feedback of ideas; so a big thanks is good enough as diamonds. So don't worry.

PD: Standby BD; it's call poor mans Oracle Dataguard. So the main DB is in archive mode; that archive are transported/copied to a Standby BD (another machine and BD instance which is off; until you have to load the archives) depending of your needs;
the Standby is just 1minute off the main BD.