we have a rather large database that runs in archive log mode with daily hot
backups taken. we ran into a situation where an application upgrade took
place and (long story short) wiped out many of the tables associated with
that application. according to my research findings, we must run an
incomplete recovery in order to recover to a point in time (time of the last
hot backup)...this means we have to restore (and uncompress) all of the
datafiles associated with this particular database instance. of course,
this takes quite a bit of time with such a large database. before we do the
restoration of the datafiles, oracle suggests making a whole, closed
database backup, which defeats the purpose of being available 24x7, and also
takes quite a bit of time...

it would seem to me that there would be a simpler, more efficient way to
recover from such a scenario with minimal downtime. the lengthy process
we're going through makes me wonder what the benefits are for having a hot
backup if the database has to be brought down anyways to perform a
"cover-your-butt" cold backup...it also makes me wonder (and this might just
be an early-morning brainfart), why can't we just recover the datafile(s)
from the hot backup (which should contain the corrupted tables) and just
recover that particular datafile? I actually did try this yesterday, but to
no avail. after the datafile restoration and recovery, I was expecting to
see the populated tables, but did not--why is that? is the "populated table
data" in the redo logs/archive logs? is it not in the datafiles?? what is
contained in the hot-backed-up datafiles??

just looking for some clarification and warm and fuzzies....this just
doesn't seem to be a very efficient way to recover a database. thanks in
advance!

Brad Hanes
SRA International
512-460-4129


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