Migrating an Oracle database from on-premise to OCI is especially challenging when the database is quite large. In this blog post I will walk through the steps to migrate to OCI leveraging an on-disk local backup copied to object storage.

The basic steps to perform this task are on on the image above.

Step #1 - Upload backup pieces to object storage.

The first step to migrate my database (acmedb) is to copy the RMAN backup pieces to the OCI object storage using the OCI Client tool.

In order to make this easier, I am breaking this step into a few smaller steps.

Step #1A - Take a full backup to a separate location on disk

This can also be done by moving the backup pieces, or creating them with a different backup format. By creating the backup pieces in a separate directory, I am able to take advantage of the bulk upload feature of the OCI client tool. The alternative is to create an upload statement for each backup piece.

For my RMAN backup example (acmedb) I am going to change the location of the disk backup and perform a disk backup. I am also going to compress my backup using medium compression (this requires the ACO license). Compressing the backup sets allows me to make the backup pieces as small as possible when transferring to the OCI object store.

Below is the output from my RMAN configuration that I am using for the backup.

RMAN> show all;

RMAN configuration parameters for database with db_unique_name ACMEDBP are:


CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP ON;
CONFIGURE DEVICE TYPE DISK PARALLELISM 4 BACKUP TYPE TO COMPRESSED BACKUPSET;
CONFIGURE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE DISK FORMAT   '/acmedb/ocimigrate/backup_%d_%U';
CONFIGURE COMPRESSION ALGORITHM 'MEDIUM' AS OF RELEASE 'DEFAULT' OPTIMIZE FOR LOAD TRUE;

I created a new level 0 backup including archive logs and below is the "list backup summary" output showing the backup pieces.

List of Backups
===============
Key     TY LV S Device Type Completion Time #Pieces #Copies Compressed Tag
------- -- -- - ----------- --------------- ------- ------- ---------- ---
4125    B  A  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141019
4151    B  A  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141201
4167    B  0  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4168    B  0  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4169    B  0  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4170    B  0  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4171    B  0  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4172    B  0  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4173    B  0  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4174    B  0  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4175    B  0  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4176    B  0  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4208    B  A  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141309
4220    B  F  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141310

From the output you can see that there are a total of 14 backup pieces

3 Archive log backup sets (two created before the backup of datafiles, and one after).

TAG20220621T141019
TAG20220621T141201
TAG20220621T141309

10 Level 0 datafile backups

TAG20220621T141202

1 controlfile backup

TAG20220621T141310

Step #1B - Create the bucket in OCI and configure OCI Client

Now we need a bucket to upload the 14 RMAN backup pieces to.

Before I can upload the objects, I need to download and configure the OCI Client tool. You can find the instructions to do this here.

Once the client tool is installed I can create the bucket and verify that the OCI Client tool is configured correctly.

The command to create the bucket is.

oci os bucket create --namespace <object_storage_namespace> --name <bucket_name> --compartment-id <target_compartment_id>

Below is the output when I ran it for my compartment and created the bucket "acmedb_migrate"

 oci os bucket create --namespace id2avsofo --name acmedb_migrate --compartment-id ocid1.compartment.oc1..aaaaaaaanqbquh2bwju4igabu5g7clir2b4ykd3tyq
{
  "data": {
    "approximate-count": null,
    "approximate-size": null,
    "auto-tiering": null,
    "compartment-id": "ocid1.compartment.oc1..aaaaaaaanqbquh2bwju4igabu5g7clir2b4ykd3tyq",
    "created-by": "ocid1.user.oc1..aaaaaaaanqbquh2bwju4igabu5g7clir2b4ykd3tyq",
    "defined-tags": {
      "Oracle-Tags": {
        "CreatedBy": "oracleidentitycloudservice/john.smith@oracle.com",
        "CreatedOn": "2022-06-21T14:36:19.680Z"
      }
    },
    "etag": "e0f028ac-d80d-4e09-8e60-876d90f57893",
    "freeform-tags": {},
    "id": "ocid1.bucket.oc1.iad.aaaaaaaanqbquh2bwju4igabu5g7clir2b4ykd3tyq",
    "is-read-only": false,
    "kms-key-id": null,
    "metadata": {},
    "name": "acmedb_migrate",
    "namespace": "id2avsofo",
    "object-events-enabled": false,
    "object-lifecycle-policy-etag": null,
    "public-access-type": "NoPublicAccess",
    "replication-enabled": false,
    "storage-tier": "Standard",
    "time-created": "2022-06-21T14:36:19.763000+00:00",
    "versioning": "Disabled"
  },
  "etag": "e0f028ac-d80d-4e09-8e60-876d90f57893"
}

Step #1C - Upload the backup pieces to Object Storage in OCI

The next step is to upload all the backup pieces that are in the directory "/acmedb/ocimigrate" to OCI using the bulk upload feature.

oci os object bulk-upload --namespace-name <object_storage_namespace>    --bucket-name <bucket_name>  --src-dir <location of objects> --parallel-upload-count <parallelism>

Below is the output of the upload - Notice I used a parallelism of 14 to ensure a quick upload.

 oci os object bulk-upload --namespace-name id20skavsofo    --bucket-name acmedb_migrate --src-dir /acmedb/ocimigrate/ --parallel-upload-count 10

Uploaded backup_RADB_3u10k6hj_126_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_4710k6jl_135_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_4610k6jh_134_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_3n10k6b0_119_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_3m10k6b0_118_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_3r10k6ec_123_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_4510k6jh_133_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_4010k6hj_128_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_3v10k6hj_127_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_4110k6hk_129_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_4210k6id_130_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_4310k6ie_131_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_3l10k6b0_117_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_4410k6ie_132_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_3k10k6b0_116_1_1  [####################################]  100%
Uploaded backup_RADB_3t10k6hj_125_1_1  [####################################]  100%

{
  "skipped-objects": [],
  "upload-failures": {},
  "uploaded-objects": {
    "backup_RADB_3k10k6b0_116_1_1": {
      "etag": "ab4a1017-3ba7-46e2-a2ee-3f4cd9a82ad3",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:42 GMT",
      "opc-multipart-md5": "W0hYIzfAWUVzACWNudcQDg==-3"
    },
    "backup_RADB_3l10k6b0_117_1_1": {
      "etag": "a620076e-975f-4d8c-87e8-394c4cf966cd",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:41 GMT",
      "opc-multipart-md5": "zapGBx8Imcdk91JM2+gORQ==-3"
    },
    "backup_RADB_3m10k6b0_118_1_1": {
      "etag": "a96c35c0-4c0b-4646-ae38-723f92c8496e",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:32 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "vNAsU3vLcjzp6OwEeLXGgA=="
    },
    "backup_RADB_3n10k6b0_119_1_1": {
      "etag": "8f565894-5097-4ebb-9569-fdd31cc0c22d",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:31 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "aSUSQWv5b+EfoLy9L9UBYQ=="
    },
    "backup_RADB_3r10k6ec_123_1_1": {
      "etag": "120dead4-c8ae-44de-9d27-39e1c28a2c48",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:33 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "4wHBrgZXuIMlYWriBbs1ng=="
    },
    "backup_RADB_3s10k6hh_124_1_1": {
      "etag": "07d74b7f-68d6-4a77-9c4d-42f78c51c692",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:28 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "uzRd51bAKvFjhbbsfL1YAg=="
    },
    "backup_RADB_3t10k6hj_125_1_1": {
      "etag": "e5d3225b-a687-47e1-ad31-f4270ce31ddd",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:42 GMT",
      "opc-multipart-md5": "aZIirf98ZNqwBAlIeWzuhQ==-3"
    },
    "backup_RADB_3u10k6hj_126_1_1": {
      "etag": "5f5cc5ad-4aa3-4c3a-8848-16b3442a1e2c",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:28 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "dT6EYLv1yzf6LZCn1/Dsvw=="
    },
    "backup_RADB_3v10k6hj_127_1_1": {
      "etag": "297daece-be72-475f-b40d-982fb7115cd3",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:36 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "Zt3h5YfHU6F771ahltYhDQ=="
    },
    "backup_RADB_4010k6hj_128_1_1": {
      "etag": "9d723f2a-962e-4d03-9283-fc8a68f53af8",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:35 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "KuNzVyUQrrSsA/kgioq9oA=="
    },
    "backup_RADB_4110k6hk_129_1_1": {
      "etag": "16f7f02a-e5ae-48a2-a7d2-b6d1dedc82ad",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:36 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "24SzzZwg7iu7PV8TBpMXEg=="
    },
    "backup_RADB_4210k6id_130_1_1": {
      "etag": "0584e14f-53dc-4251-8bad-907f357a283e",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:37 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "sjPsmoeFsMhZISAmaVN0vQ=="
    },
    "backup_RADB_4310k6ie_131_1_1": {
      "etag": "176aea41-dd31-4404-99f4-ffd59c521fd3",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:40 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "2ksAQ2UuU/75YyRKujlLXg=="
    },
    "backup_RADB_4410k6ie_132_1_1": {
      "etag": "766c7585-3837-490b-8563-f3be3d24c98e",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:41 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "sh4CFUC/vnxjmMZ5mfgT3Q=="
    },
    "backup_RADB_4510k6jh_133_1_1": {
      "etag": "2de62d73-e44c-4f25-a41d-d45c556054dd",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:34 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "4tVrHqwYG57STn9W6c2Mqw=="
    },
    "backup_RADB_4610k6jh_134_1_1": {
      "etag": "4667419d-9555-4edb-bd6d-749a1ee7660b",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:29 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "/MVdDn/vA2IXUcCmtdgKnw=="
    },
    "backup_RADB_4710k6jl_135_1_1": {
      "etag": "d467810a-d62e-42b3-bf7b-019913707312",
      "last-modified": "Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:57:29 GMT",
      "opc-content-md5": "hq8PEQ3PUwyTMWyUBfW4ew=="
    }
  }
}

Step #2 - Create the manifest for the backup pieces.

The next step covers creating the "metadata.xml" for each object which is the manifest the the RMAN library uses to read the backup pieces.

Again this is broken down into a few different steps.

Step #2A - Download an configure the Oracle Database Cloud Backup Module.

The link for the instructions (which includes the download can be found here.

I executed the jar file which downloads/created the following files.

libopc.so - This is the library used by the Cloud Backup module, and I downloaded it into "/home/oracle/ociconfig/lib/" on my host
acmedb.ora - This is the configuration file for my database backup. This was created in "/home/oracle/ociconfig/config/" on my host

This information is used to allocate the channel in RMAN for the manifest.

Step #2b - Generate the manifest create for each backup piece.

The next step is to dynamically create the script to build the manifest for each backup piece. This needs to be done for each backup piece, and the command is

"send channel t1 'export backuppiece <object name>';

The script I am using to complete this uses backup information from the controlfile of the database, and narrows the backup pieces to just the pieces in the directory I created for this backup.

select '       send channel t1 ''export backuppiece ' || substr(fname,19) || ''';' from V$BACKUP_FILES where fname like '<backup location>';

Step #2c - Execute the script with an allocated channel.

The next step is to execute the script in RMAN within a run block after allocating a channel to the bucket in object storage. This needs to be done for each backup piece. You create a run block with one channel allocation followed by "send" commands.

NOTE: This does not have be executed on the host that generated the backups. In the example below, I set my ORACLE_SID to "dummy" and performed create manifest with the "dummy" instance started up nomount.

Below is an example of allocating a channel to the object storage and creating the manifest for one of the backup pieces.


export ORACLE_SID=dummy
 rman target /
RMAN> startup nomount;

startup failed: ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters
LRM-00109: could not open parameter file '/u01/app/oracle/product/19c/dbhome_1/dbs/initdummy.ora'

starting Oracle instance without parameter file for retrieval of spfile
Oracle instance started

Total System Global Area    1073737792 bytes

Fixed Size                     8904768 bytes
Variable Size                276824064 bytes
Database Buffers             780140544 bytes
Redo Buffers                   7868416 bytes

RMAN> run {
          allocate channel t1 device type sbt parms='SBT_LIBRARY=/home/oracle/ociconfig/lib/libopc.so ENV=(OPC_PFILE=/home/oracle/ociconfig/config/acmedb.ora)';
       send channel t1 'export backuppiece backup_RADB_3r10k6ec_123_1_1';
        }
2> 3> 4>
allocated channel: t1
channel t1: SID=19 device type=SBT_TAPE
channel t1: Oracle Database Backup Service Library VER=23.0.0.1

sent command to channel: t1
released channel: t1

Step #2d - Validate the manifest is created.

I logged into the OCI console, and I can see that there is a directory called "sbt_catalog". This is the directory containing the manifest files. Within this directory you will find a subdirectory for each backup piece. And within those subdirectories you will find a "metadata.xml" object containing the manifest.

Step #3 - Catalog the backup pieces.

The next step covers cataloging the backup pieces in OCI. You need to download the controlfile backup from OCI and start up mount the database.

Again this is broken down into a few different steps.

Step #3A - Download an configure the Oracle Database Cloud Backup Module.

The link for the instructions (which includes the download can be found here.

Again, you need to configure the backup module (or you can copy the files from your on-premise host).

Step #3b - Catalog each backup piece.

The next step is to dynamically create the script to build the catalog each backup piece. This needs to be done for each backup piece, and the command is

"catalog device type 'sbt_tape' backuppiece <object name>';

The script I am using to complete this uses backup information from the controlfile of the database, and narrows the backup pieces to just the pieces in the directory I created for this backup.

select '       catalog device type 'sbt_tape' backuppiece ''' || substr(fname,20) || ''';' from V$BACKUP_FILES where fname like '/acmedb/ocimigrate/%';

Step #3c - Execute the script with a configured channel.

I created a configure channel command, and cataloged the backup pieces that in the object store.

RMAN> CONFIGURE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE 'SBT_TAPE' PARMS  'SBT_LIBRARY=/home/oracle/ociconfig/lib/libopc.so ENV=(OPC_PFILE=/home/oracle/ociconfig/config/acmedb.ora)';


  run {
           catalog device type 'sbt_tape' backuppiece 'backup_RADB_3r10k6ec_123_1_1';
          catalog device type 'sbt_tape' backuppiece 'backup_RADB_3s10k6hh_124_1_1';
          catalog device type 'sbt_tape' backuppiece 'backup_RADB_3t10k6hj_125_1_1';
          catalog device type 'sbt_tape' backuppiece 'backup_RADB_3u10k6hj_126_1_1';
          catalog device type 'sbt_tape' backuppiece 'backup_RADB_3v10k6hj_127_1_1';
          catalog device type 'sbt_tape' backuppiece 'backup_RADB_4010k6hj_128_1_1';
          catalog device type 'sbt_tape' backuppiece ' backup_RADB_4110k6hk_129_1_1';
          catalog device type 'sbt_tape' backuppiece 'backup_RADB_4210k6id_130_1_1';
          catalog device type 'sbt_tape' backuppiece 'backup_RADB_4310k6ie_131_1_1';
          catalog device type 'sbt_tape' backuppiece 'backup_RADB_4410k6ie_132_1_1';
          catalog device type 'sbt_tape' backuppiece 'backup_RADB_4510k6jh_133_1_1';
        }

old RMAN configuration parameters:
CONFIGURE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE 'SBT_TAPE' PARMS  'SBT_LIBRARY=/home/oracle/ociconfig/lib/libopc.so ENV=(OPC_PFILE=/home/oracle/ociconfig/config/acmedb.ora)';
new RMAN configuration parameters:
CONFIGURE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE 'SBT_TAPE' PARMS  'SBT_LIBRARY=/home/oracle/ociconfig/lib/libopc.so ENV=(OPC_PFILE=/home/oracle/ociconfig/config/acmedb.ora)';
new RMAN configuration parameters are successfully stored
starting full resync of recovery catalog
full resync complete

RMAN>
RMAN> 2> 3> 4> 5> 6> 7> 8> 9> 10> 11> 12> 13>
allocated channel: ORA_SBT_TAPE_1
channel ORA_SBT_TAPE_1: SID=406 device type=SBT_TAPE
channel ORA_SBT_TAPE_1: Oracle Database Backup Service Library VER=23.0.0.1
allocated channel: ORA_SBT_TAPE_2
channel ORA_SBT_TAPE_2: SID=22 device type=SBT_TAPE
channel ORA_SBT_TAPE_2: Oracle Database Backup Service Library VER=23.0.0.1
allocated channel: ORA_SBT_TAPE_3
channel ORA_SBT_TAPE_3: SID=407 device type=SBT_TAPE
...
...
...
channel ORA_SBT_TAPE_4: SID=23 device type=SBT_TAPE
channel ORA_SBT_TAPE_4: Oracle Database Backup Service Library VER=23.0.0.1
channel ORA_SBT_TAPE_1: cataloged backup piece
backup piece handle=backup_RADB_4510k6jh_133_1_1 RECID=212 STAMP=1107964867

RMAN>

Step #3d - List the backups pieces cataloged

I performed a list backup summary to view the newly cataloged tape backup pieces.

RMAN> list backup summary;


List of Backups
===============
Key     TY LV S Device Type Completion Time #Pieces #Copies Compressed Tag
------- -- -- - ----------- --------------- ------- ------- ---------- ---
4220    B  F  A DISK        21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141310
4258    B  A  A SBT_TAPE    21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141019
4270    B  A  A SBT_TAPE    21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141201
4282    B  0  A SBT_TAPE    21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4292    B  0  A SBT_TAPE    21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4303    B  0  A SBT_TAPE    21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4315    B  0  A SBT_TAPE    21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4446    B  0  A SBT_TAPE    21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4468    B  0  A SBT_TAPE    21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4490    B  0  A SBT_TAPE    21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4514    B  0  A SBT_TAPE    21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202
4539    B  0  A SBT_TAPE    21-JUN-22       1       1       YES        TAG20220621T141202

RMAN>

Step #4 - Restore the database.

The last step is restore the cataloged backup pieces. Remember you might have to change the location of the datafiles.

The process above can be used to upload and catalog both additional archive logs (to bring the files forward) and incremental backups to bring the database forward.

Bryan's Oracle Blog

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Migrate a large oracle database to OCI from disk backup