vxsfadm - Generic Utility which does various point in time copy operations for various applications (including Oracle) using storage foundation features.

vxsfadm -s <service_type> -a oracle -o <operation>
[ -c config-file ]
[ -r Respository-host ]
[ service specific parameters ]
[ oracle specific parameters ]

vxsfadm [-s <service-type>] -a oracle -o list
[ service specific parameters ]
[ oracle specific parameters ]

vxsfadm -s <service-type> -a oracle -o setdefaults
[ service specific parameters ]
[ oracle specific parameters ]

vxsfadm is a single cli to execute the various point in time copy operation. Currently vxsfadm supports various services types such as flashsnap,filesnap,so snapshots,checkpoints. Currently supported application is oracle database. The utility works for multiple database configurations viz. single instance, High Available (VCS cluster), RAC configuration , dataguard and VVR configuration.

To be able to use the various snapshot services, some pre-requisites must be satisfied:

The following database layouts are supported:

o	All database files must be on VxFS filesystems. These include all copies of control files, datafiles, tempfiles, and all copies of online redo log files. All the underlying volumes must be VxVM volumes.
o	At least one archive log destination must be on VxFS on a VxVM volume.
o	For online snapshot mode, the archive log destination must not contain any controlfiles, datafiles, tempfiles or online redo log files.
o	The database PFILE or SPFILE can be anywhere. If the database is using a pfile and the pfile resides in a non-default location (other than $ORACLE_HOME/dbs), then the pfile location must be specified explicitly using the PFILE parameter.
o	Oracle home directory can be anywhere.
o	Databases using OMF naming conventions are fully supported.
o	Databases on ASM storage are not supported.
o	vxsfadm uses OS authentication to access the Oracle Database (/ as sysdba), the same needs to be enabled.

Following are the paramters for an Oracle database. For other generic command-line options/ parameters, refer to vxsfadm (1M) man page.

<Oracle specific parameters >
APP_MODE	The parameter APP_MODE specifies the snapshot mode to be used when taking a snapshot using any of the available snapshot services viz. Flashsnap, Filesnap, Checkpoint, SOS etc. The available snapshot modes are summarized below and more information is available in the Oracle guide for Storage Foundation:
online	This is the default and the recommended snapshot mode. In this mode, the Oracle database is put into hot backup mode during the snapshot operation.
offline	In this mode, the database is required to be offline during the snapshot operation. The user must also validate the database configuration once when the database is online. Once the database configuration is validated, a snapshot can be taken by shutting down the database.
instant	In this mode, the filesystems on which the database resides are momentarily frozen to capture a crash-consistent image of the running database. Database is not put into hot backup mode, nor is archivelog mode required.

vxsfadm-flashsnap(1M), vxsfadm-sos(1M), vxsfadm-checkpoint(1M), vxsfadm-filesnap(1M) vxsfadm-oracle-flashsnap(1M), vxsfadm-oracle-sos(1M), vxsfadm-oracle-checkpoint(1M), vxsfadm-oracle-filesnap(1M)

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