Technical report: Oracle9i for UNIX on IBM System Storage N series

Overview

Database administrators and developers clone databases for various reasons, such as updating test or development environments from production or switching the production database to the clone in case of an emergency. Cloning databases usually involves both backup and recovery procedures. The clone can exist on the same host as the production database or on a different host. This paper describes the cloning process of Oracle9i databases using the IBM System Storage N series with Data ONTAP flexible-volume clone feature and Oracle backup/recovery techniques. Cloning processes under both NFS and FCP environments are considered. Procedures for validating the cloned data are also discussed.