Understanding Backup Location required in Ginesys HO Backup utility

Oracle documentation says, Oracle Data Pump utilities are designed for enhanced performance especially for large databases. For large volume database a dramatic increase in performance should be experienced in compared to the original Export and Import utilities. Moreover original Export (exp) or Import (imp) utilities are de-supported for general use as of Oracle Database 12c. Therefore, Oracle recommends to use the new Data Pump Export (expdp) and Import (impdp) utilities, except the case where you want to import files that were created using the original Export utility (exp).

There are some fundamental differences between original utilities and Data Pump utilities. Those are,

Data Pump uses parallelism to export large database in lesser time.
Data Pump technology fully uses all available resources to maximize throughput and minimize elapsed job time.
Dump files are read and written directly by the server and, therefore, do not require any data movement to the client.
The database administrator (DBA) must create directory objects that define the server locations to which files are written.

In recent version of Ginesys (above 11.147.5), Oracle 12c database (12.1.0.2.0) is the only supported Oracle version. Also the original export utility is not capable to do a successful complete export of Ginesys database (12c) as exp fails to export some advanced functionality in Oracle 12c. Ginesys already released the revamped backup utility based on Oracle Data Pump Export utility (expdp) in release 11.147.8. To accommodate the changes in Oracle utility Ginesys backup utility has also changed. Now there are some specific requirement to select the backup location. This article will help you to select the backup location for Ginesys Backup utility.

Single server deployment (application and database on the same server):

In this case only one path is required for backup destination. User can mention a local physical path (say D:\GSL_BACKUP) or a shared UNC path on different server (\\FileServer\GSL_BACKUP). Only difference is, if UNC path is mentioned as backup destination, utility will not create the final compressed backup file (.bak). The Oracle export (.dmp) files remain as it is in 'RAW_FILE' directory.

Separate server deployment (application and database on different server):

Ginesys Backup utility when DB server is separate

For fastest backup time it is always better to create the export on the database server itself, that eliminates network overhead during export. Ginesys utility assumes that the main export dump will be created on DB server only. For separate server deployment Ginesys backup utility asks for two paths.

Path 1:

Utility creates a date-folder and writes some export files other than Oracle backup. This has to be a UNC path shared from Database server. Permission must provided suitably so that Application server can writes file without any restriction.

Path 2:

This has to be a physical path. Where the date-folder should be found. In this path Oracle creates the dump file during expdp command. Oracle needs direct access to this path. This will be the physical path of the shared UNC path mentioned in previous field.

Example:

Following examples clarify further what type of path to mention in Ginesys Backup utility.

In case database on Windows Server,

Path 1: \\DBServer\GSL_Backup

Path 2: D:\GSL_Backup (a physical path on DBServer)

In case database on Linux Server,

Path 1: \\DBServer\GSL_Backup

Path 2: /oracle/gsl_backup (a physical path on DBServer)

Note:

In Linux server, the backup directory must be shared in such a way that the shared can be accessed from Windows application server using UNC path (\\Path). For this SMB share to be enabled on Linux server.

On backup directory proper permission must be provided so that Application server can writes file without any restriction.

As on date current version of Ginesys (11.148.x series) restore utility still uses original import utility (imp). As a result, any backup created by expdp utility cannot be restored using Ginesys DB Restore utility. Manual restoration required.