Hello again!
Thanks to the several replies to this query, in particular:
Becky Gaster - becky.gaster_at_deseretbook.com
Scott Muchler - smutchler_at_gfs.com
Andrew Tolmie - andrew.tolmie_at_carltontv.co.uk
Nikola Milutinovic - nikola.milutinovic_at_ev.co.yu
Michael Bradford - mjbr_at_tdk.dk
Richard Stevenson - richard.stevenson_at_vuw.ac.nz
Jim Smart - jim_at_tsw.com.au
Russell Fish - russ_fish_at_idx.com
Jason Carter - jason_at_newcreset.com.au
My summary here will mainly focus around the Oracle Database side, but
I'll try and summarise the general Unix side as well...
The general concenus was.....
- Turn off cron (or disable jobs):
Don't have any cron jobs running over midnight.
- Shutdown all Databases and listeners:
Of course this assumes you can do this - and you're site isn't a 24 hour
availability business!
The main advantage here is no transactions or logs that happen over
midnight.
- Do a full system Backup:
Most people agree vdump is the way to go. Most people are NOT using a
product to do their backup (eg. ACME Backup Manager, etc,etc) but instead
are relying on vdump, or another Unix command (eg tar,cpio,etc...)
Make sure the backups finish BEFORE midnight. We plan to shut systems
down at 12 noon 31 Dec, so we've got a while to perform a backup.
On top of this , some sites are doing complete system backups for several
days leading up to Y2K (eg, 28-31 Dec 1999)
Where possible, the final backup is done in single user mode.
Some people are also doing 2 level's of backup - System and Applications.
We'll probably go this way - All Oracle information on one tape, system on
another.
-Rolling over into the year 2000:
I think nearly everyone is keeping their machines power on - They will
shutdown the boxes , but just keep them at the Chevron prompt.
Other people are running in either single user or init 3, but with all
operations turned off (ie Databases, Applications, etc,etc)
Other suggestions include running reports and configurations (Both system
and Business Data) on the 31st, so you have something to reconcile
against if there's any problems after 1 Jan....
Of course , if you're a 7x24 site (7 days a week, 24 hours) you can't
really shutdown, so most suggestions pointed towards moving the backup
windows so that the backups finished before midnight.
Plus of course, keeping the databases in hot backup mode! (Or shutting
down all non-essential databases, like test or developement systems)
Thanks again for all the replies.
New Zealand and Australia will be some of the first places to tick over,
so we get to have all the fun first!!!!
Happy new year,
reg.
Dirk.
dirk_at_iinet.net.au
Received on Wed Dec 15 1999 - 04:33:13 NZDT