Backup best practices for Oracle Clusterware

I recommend you to backup clusterware related files after initial setup and at any change. The backup files can save you from OCR, OLR corruption during GI patch. If any of the files become corrupted you will be able to recover it in several minutes (or seconds). Depends on the failure, you may lose several hours to recover your cluster to the state it was before something happened.

Here are the steps to protect your cluster:

1. Backup ASM spfile initially and at any change.

There are several ways to backup ASM spfile using spcopy, spbackup or create pfile=<backup location> from spfile.

To locate the Oracle ASM SPFILE, use the ASMCMD spget command:

ASMCMD> spget
+GRID/myrac/ASMPARAMETERFILE/registry.253.974466047

Copy the Oracle ASM SPFILE to the backup location:

ASMCMD> spbackup +GRID/myrac/ASMPARAMETERFILE/registry.253.974466047 /backup/spfileasm.ora

2. Backing up ASM password file once should be enough. If you change password for pwfile users or add another user into the list, then make a new backup.

Locate the password file using the ASMCMD pwget command.

ASMCMD> pwget --asm
+GRID/orapwASM

Back up the password file to another location with the pwcopy command.

ASMCMD> pwcopy +GRID/orapwASM  /backup/orapwASM 
copying +GRID/orapwASM -> /backup/orapwASM

3. Use md_backup command to create a backup file containing metadata for one or more disk groups.

To backup metadata for all disk groups, do the following:

ASMCMD> md_backup /tmp/dgmetabackup

Disk group metadata to be backed up: DATA
Disk group metadata to be backed up: FRA
Disk group metadata to be backed up: GRID

In case you need to backup metadata only for a specific disk group, use -G option.

4. Backup OLR on each node.

If OLR is missing or corrupted, clusterware can’t be started on that node. So make manual backup initially and after any change:

Do the following on each node:

# ocrconfig -local -manualbackup

Copy generated file to the backup location:

# cp /u01/app/12.2.0/grid/cdata/rac1/backup_20180510_230359.olr /backup/

Or change default backup location to /backup before making the actual backup:

# ocrconfig -local -backuploc /backup

# ocrconfig -local -manualbackup

5. Mirror and Backup OCR.

You should configure OCR in two independent disk groups. Typically, this is the work area and the recovery area. At least two OCR locations should be configured.

# ocrconfig -add +FRA

There are automatic OCR backups that are taken in the past 4 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, and in the last day and week.

You can also manually backup OCR before applying any patch or upgrade GI home:

# ocrconfig -manualbackup

Regularly save taken backup to another location using the following way:

Identify the latest backup (manual or automatic):

[grid@rac1 ~]$ ocrconfig -showbackup
rac1 2018/05/10 13:06:18 +GRID:/myrac/OCRBACKUP/backup00.ocr.289.975762375 830990544
..

Copy it to the backup location:

$ ocrconfig -copy +GRID:/myrac/OCRBACKUP/backup00.ocr.289.975762375 /backup/backup00.ocr

Or change default backup locations to another diskgroup other than GRID:

# ocrconfig -backuploc +FRA