snapshot on Oracle and SQL servers

[mdangel1]

All,

I am a big fan of snapshots for application servers, file servers, etc. I wanted some input on the behavior of taking snapshots of Oracle and SQL severs. Is it supported?

I am no DBA, but it seems to me it may not be best practice.

Your input would be greatly appreciated

[mcowger · Accepted solution]

I'd recommend using the database level snapshot functions builtin into the database engines instead...

[mdangel1]

Thank you for your reply Matt. Is it safe to say that capturing VM snapshots of Oracle and SQL vm's is not supported by the vendors.

I know vSPhere will of course let you capture the snapshot, but if there is an issue and I need to revert back, I wonder if there could be Databse corruption.

[maishsk · Accepted solution]

If you are relying solely on VMware snapshots - the answer is yes - it could cause database corruption.

As Matt said. Database vendor tools should be used for snapshoting your database

[jhunter1]

This blog article may be of interest:

http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2013/03/quiescing-oracle-db-windows-vdpa.html

[mdangel1]

Thank you all!!!!!