I have been tasked with creating some backups for some Oracle Apex apps (Application Express v4.1.1.00.23). The request is to back up both the applications & referenced db objects (not sure if this means just structure or structure & data).
On the one hand, I would have expected standard db backups to handle most or all of this but I'm very new to Apex so it's all a learning curve.
I'm currently exporting the application from apex and then exporting (using SQL Developer) all the database object dependencies that Apex gives me - although I see that the list doesn't include functions that are used for auth.
This seems a really clunky process that's very prone to mistakes (miss an object, save something to the wrong place, no guarantees of consistency etc).
Does Apex (my version!) offer something to do the job or is there something else I could be doing? I've had a good google but nothing has stood out.
UPDATE: I realise now that I should have included some extra info. I'm currently at a large organisation & I believe our db backups (which I guess/hope are done using rman) are done by a different department. I think the motivation for the request is so that we have some local, easily accessible backup so that if one of the developers messes something up we don't have to go through multiple layers of organisation (& undoubtedly a lot of time) to sort ourselves out. I suspect that some kind of source control would be a great starting point but I'm not sure how far I'll get with that idea - especially as we seem to have little in the way of autonomy over things like servers.
RMAN is the way to go to backup an oracle database:
https://docs.oracle.com/database/121/BRADV/toc.htm
there are tons of material on the hows and whys online; just google "oracle rman" and you'll find what you need (the documentation should cover you as well of course).
cheers
Standard DB backups will include everything you need.
The Apex applications I develop are static, meaning the end users make no changes to the Apex application, and there is no need to make a specific backup other than to store the original apex application .sql installation files in a safe place.
If you must, you can make an export of the database schemas the application uses. For example with the expdp utility.
IN apex you need to take 2 backups one in the workspace
Second your application
Third is while using export import from the database it tends to loose & character in procedure ..So beter use rman and take a complete backup.
I have found this Oracle white paper Life Cycle Management with Oracle Application Express (Revision 2) which does what it says on the tin - including various strategies for exporting, backing up & managing 'lost application development'. It's a really good read and I'll be using it as a template for suggestions of how we can manage our process in future.
Related
Do someone know how to access the database used by the Opera PMS software ? Is there a general answer for all Oracle database... the only info i found was about this command
sqlplus hr/my_hr_password#host_computer_name
is SQL plus installed with all Oracle software ? My goal is to make batch file, find some data in the Remote Database that had just been created by Opera PMS, save them on my local drive to a text file for the next step... Any clue will be very helpfull ... i 'm total noob in DB and dont want to mess up the system (i'm lazy employee but want to keep that one :-)) Blessed love
If Oracle wanted developers to have programmatic access to the Opera data then they would provide an API for that. They don't. Opera PMS does an export function, OPP_EXP Export Files, but apparently it's a chargeable extra. How very Oracle:)
Basically if your company pays for OPP_EXP Export Files you should use that. If they don't then attempting to get data out of the database by your own means would probably jeopardise your company's license agreement (although I agree it would be unlikely that Oracle would ever find out).
We are developing a large data migration from Oracle DB (12c) to another system with SSIS. The developers are using a production copy database but the problem is that, due to the complexity of the data transformation, we have to do things in stages by preprocessing data into intermediate helper tables which are then used further downstream. The problem is that all developers are using the same database and screw each other up by running things simultaneously. Does Oracle DB offer anything in terms of developer sandboxing? We could build a mechanism to handle this (e.g. have dev ID in the helper tables, then query views that map to the dev), but I'd much rather use built-in functionality. Could I use Oracle Multitenant for this?
We ended up producing a master subset database of select schemas/tables through some fairly elaborate PL/SQL, then made several copies of this master schema so each dev has his/her own sandbox (as Alex suggested). We could have used Oracle Data Masking and Subsetting but it's too expensive. Another option for creating the subset database wouldn have been to use Jailer. I should note that we didn't have a need to mask any sensitive data.
Note. I would think this a fairly common problem so if new tools and solutions arise, please post them here as answers.
Using Toad for Oracle 10.6 with DB Admin Add-in. For our migration process Dev to QA to Prod, we are starting to use the Schema Compare Module to generate the Sync Script DDL. After execution, we want to store the Sync Scripts for historical purposes. Due to policy, we are unable to copy these much of anyplace. Even the Windows server where toad runs is write-restricted.
I am thinking I could create a table with a CLOB column and store the scripts there, unless you folks tell me that this is a Really Bad Idea. I am looking for any tips on things like handling embedded special characters, or any other pitfalls that I may encounter.
Thanks,
JimR
Doing the best with what you have is a good thing. If management won't let you have version control, then jamming it in the database is better than nothing at all. The important thing is to create a process, document it, and follow it for deployments.
As for using schema differences to deploy, take a look at:
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Database-Changes-Done-Right.aspx
We are using liquibase as evolutionary DB change management tool in our applications, it works great when we use it in "common" database schemas.
But we also work with GIS applications using esri arcSDE 9.3 platform over Oracle and in this case, all (or almost all) tables (both GIS and 'alphanumeric' tables) in the schema are managed (create table, grants, etc.) through arcSDE. So when we want to create new feature classe now we use arcCatalog, and this way, it's not possible to manage the feature classes’ changes directly through SQL using liquibase or other automate refactoring tool.
So if we cannot use liquibase to manage changes, at least we want to execute the management operations over our features through command line.
We’ve started looking for tools that avoid the use of arcCatalog, and then try to automate the changes using scripts, we are investigating these possibilities:
Try to capture the SQL that arcCatalog/arcSDE is executing each time we make a change in one Feature Class monitoring the oracle connection. It outcomes us a too complex set of SQL instructions that involves indexes, versioning tables, etc. so we give up this way.
Use the sdelayer and sdetable admin commands installed on arcSDE server.
Use the data management tool: a python based library to manage the feature classes, but it has to be executed from a machine with the desktop version installed.
These last two options will provide a way to manage features from command-line, but our target is to find/develop a tool to manage changes similar to the way liquibase do. But with these tools we will have to find a tool that let us map each SQL DDL operation to an arcSDE command, and currently no db refactoring tool provides this (currently we have check liquibase, dbdeploy, flyway).
Anybody had solved this problem of evolutionary change management with arcSDE? Any insight of another way to face this problem?
I'll take a stab at this, although I'm unfamiliar with one of the products you mention (liquibase specifically - I have used Oracle and I'm very familiar with ArcGIS (ArcMap & ArcCatalog).
Here's just some additional information that may help and my interpretation of your question.
My interpretation - "What's a simple way to manage or enable us to automate the management of our tables of GIS data in our Oracle database without having to use ArcCatalog all the time?"
So - I'll throw this concept back in the ring - I know SQL Server has spatial datatypes "geometry", etc. and that you can bypass SDE and let ArcGIS directly connect and interpret this data without even installing SDE. I also know Oracle has compatible spatial types. So I would possibly consider migrating my data from the managed FC's that ArcCatalog creates and push them into oracle-native geometry based tables. This way you can treat them like regular tables, cut ESRI out of the solution, and manage them with liquibase, etc. Hopefully that helps.
I would also consider upgrading to 10.1 or at least 10.0 (I promise I'm not an undercover salesman), although that will require your users to come with you on the client side (http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//002q000000n8000000) because the newer python APIs are much easier and faster to use (arcpy vs. the GP model), if you do choose to use Python to manage your stuff. (Regardless, either API isn't very well developed and isn't intuitive to code in or fast.)
Good luck.
My delayed job has something to do with exporting slightly edited version of most of the tables in the app's database, and while doing so, it is critical that none of the current data is being edited.
Is it possible to lock the entire database while running this delayed job?
More Information:
The database to be exported is in PostgreSQL, Heroku's postgresql database, to be more specific.
The flow is something like (all below should be done automatically by the code):
site would be put in maintenance mode,
freeze then export the database, then
when exporting is complete, re-activate the site back
Given there is not a lot of information with your question, I am going to answer you as best I can.
1) What is the database type and model? Is it a standalone DB like MS Access or Informix SE?
2) If not a standalone engine, does this database support replication. I used to work a lot with MS SQL Server, and replication had implications while the database was live and being edited. That is the implications were whether edited data was replicated. In this case, consult the docs. Is it an option to use replication to preserve the current database?
3) What kind of task is this? It sounds like maintenance. Our Informix SE databases lock when being imported or exported. On the production server, it is my job to make sure no local server applications are trying to access the locked DB, and that our external payments web site cannot interfere while the db is locked.
4) If this is a production site that is not in maintenance mode, then I suggest you probably do not want to lock an entire database.
I am sorry for not answering your question directly, but more information is needed like are you asking if this can be done from the Ruby DB interface on some model of db.