Dell Avamar for Oracle 19.10 User Guide

Specifying before, after, and nobackuptag flags to increase index lookup speed

The Avamar Plug-in for Oracle uses the avtar --history command to perform index lookups. This command can sometimes run slowly. To increase the index lookup speed, you can specify the --before, --after, and --nobackuptag flags with the send command.

• Do not set the --before or --after flags for backups. The libobk_avamar.x automatically sets these flags to the backup start time, which enables the backup index lookup to search only for backups that are created after the backup began.
• Set the --before, --after, or --nobackuptag flags for restores with the send command in an RMAN script. The following RMAN script shows how to set these flags:

  connect target user/password@SID;
  run {
     allocate channel c1 type sbt
  PARMS="SBT_LIBRARY=install-dir/lib/libobk_avamar.so";
     send '"--after=2014-11-07 00:30:00" "--before=2014-11-11 01:00:00"
  "--bindir=install-dir/avamar/bin" "--flagfile=my-avtar-flags.txt" "--taskfile=/oracle/taskfile.txt" "--nobackuptag"';
     restore datafile 4;
     release channel c1;

  Use the following time format for the --before and --after flags:
  YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
  NOTE:The smaller the time range between the --before and --after flags, the faster the searches.
• In addition to the --before and --after flags, use the --nohist flag to disable all index lookups for all operations. Set the --nohist flag with the send command in an RMAN script:

  send '"--nohist" "--bindir=install-dir/avamar/bin"
  "--flagfile=my-avtar-flags.txt"';

  The --nohist flag does not require a value.
  NOTE:When you use the --nohist flag during a backup or restore operation, and if the backup piece label name contains more than 48 characters, the operation fails because of the Avamar server's user accounting system limitation.
• Use the –noduplicatecheck flag, to disable index lookups only for backups to disable duplicate name checks. Set the --noduplicatecheck flag with the send command in an RMAN script:

  send '"--noduplicatecheck" "--bindir=install-dir/avamar/bin" "--flagfile=my-avtar-flags.txt"'

  The --noduplicatecheck flag does not require a value and is only relevant for backups that are performed from RMAN CLI without a taskfile. Because use of the --noduplicatecheck flag disables the check for duplicate names in the Avamar server, best practices are to name backup pieces in the RMAN script, for example: %d_%U, to that ensure that each backup piece is unique.