Database Testing – Backup

The most important part of an organizational growth is its data. In case of a system failure, there is a need to restore the data. Back up is an exact copy of the database, which helps you to restore your data in case of any data loss.

Consider a finance company which has data related to its customers such as A/C number, customer names, credit and debits, duration, etc. How would such an organization deal with the pressure of losing such important information in case of a data failure?

This is the reason you back up the data so that in case of any failure of a disk, disk controller, etc. you can rely on the backup to restore it into the database.

Types of Data Backups

There are two types of backup that can be used −

• Physical Backups − Physical backup includes taking back up using third-party backup tools like Veritas Net Back, IBM Tivoli Manager or user manager backups using OS utilities.

• Logical Backups − Logical backup of database includes taking backups of logical objects like tables, indexes, procedures, etc.

Example − One of common tool to take data backup is Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) that is an Oracle utility to take database backup.

RMAN consists of two components −

• Target database for which backup is required.

• RMAN client is used to run commands to take data backup.

BACKUP VALIDATE is used to test if you are able to make a valid backup of database files. It ensures −

• If backup is in place for physical or logical objects of database.
• If regular backups are set up for invaluable data.
• If the backup tool meets the backup requirements of an organization.