RMAN Restore Scenarios for Oracle RAC

Learn about the RMAN restore scenarios for Oracle RAC.

Restoring Backups from a Cluster File System

Learn how to restore backups from cluster file systems.

The scheme that this section describes assumes that you are using the "Oracle Advanced Cluster File System Archiving Scheme". In this scheme, assume that node3 performed the backups to a cluster file system. If node3 is available for the restore and recovery operation, and if all of the archived logs have been backed up or are on disk, then run the following commands to perform complete recovery:

RESTORE DATABASE;
RECOVER DATABASE;

If node3 performed the backups but is unavailable, then configure a media management device for one of the remaining nodes and make the backup media from node3 available to this node.

Note:

If you configured RMAN as described in "Configuring Channels to Use Automatic Load Balancing", then, to load balance the channels across nodes, note that channels cannot be load balanced before at least one instance has successfully opened the database. This means that the channels will not be load balanced across the nodes during a full database restore. To achieve load balancing of channels for RESTORE and RECOVER commands, you can temporarily reallocate channels by running commands similar to the following:

run {
ALLOCATE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE sbt C1 CONNECT '@racinst_1'
ALLOCATE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE sbt C2 CONNECT '@racinst_2'
...
}

Restoring Backups from a Noncluster File System

Learn how to restore backups from noncluster file systems.

The scheme that this section describes assumes that you are using the "Noncluster File System Local Archiving Scheme". In this scheme, each node archives locally to a different directory. For example, node1 archives to /arc_dest_1, node2 archives to /arc_dest_2, and node3 archives to /arc_dest_3. You must configure a network file system file so that the recovery node can read the archiving directories on the remaining nodes.

If all nodes are available and if all archived redo logs have been backed up, then you can perform a complete restore and recovery by mounting the database and running the following commands from any node:

RESTORE DATABASE;
RECOVER DATABASE;

Because the network file system configuration enables each node read access to the redo log files on other nodes, then the recovery node can read and apply the archived redo logs located on the local and remote disks. No manual transfer of archived redo logs is required.

Using RMAN or Oracle Enterprise Manager to Restore the Server Parameter File (SPFILE)

You can restore SPFILEs with RMAN or Oracle Enterprise Manager.

RMAN can restore the server parameter file either to the default location or to a location that you specify.

You can also use Oracle Enterprise Manager to restore the SPFILE. From the Backup/Recovery section of the Maintenance tab, click Perform Recovery. The Perform Recovery link is context-sensitive and navigates you to the SPFILE restore only when the database is closed.