Quest Software has unveiled Quest Backup Reporter for Oracle, a desktop solution that offers DBAs a dashboard view of all of the Oracle backups across the enterprise that they are managing and also provides drill-down views into a single database for more detailed reporting.
DBAs are often managing many databases, in some cases over 100 databases, and this presents "a real challenge" for them to ensure that the backups are safe, and be sure that the databases can be successfully recovered if there is a data corruption or some other problem in an application which is important to the business, John Pocknell, product manager for Toad Solutions, Quest Software, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
In addition to simplifying and cutting the time needed to report on the status of Oracle backups, the new solution is also aimed at reducing the risk associated with failed or poorly performing backups. According to Quest, Quest Backup Reporter for Oracle tracks real-time and historical backup performance to get ahead of imminent problems that could compromise the DBA's ability to recover a database; reports on how much space backup devices are consuming now, and over a longer period of time, to help minimize backup failures; delivers advisories on problems that may affect database recoverability, with recommendations developed by Quest's Oracle experts; notifies users if there is violation of backup policy to ensure backup strategies are effective and SLAs are being met; and enables DBAs to quickly plan and view scheduled Oracle backups across the entire data center,
Pocknell says the issues facing DBAs around managing backups are going to get worse before they get better. "In other words, the number of databases that DBAs are managing is increasing. The number of databases in a typical organization that need to be backed up is also increasing," he says. Quest believes that about 20-25% of all databases in a typical organization now need to be backed up and its research shows that it is probably going to grow to something like 40% on average, and in some instances can already be as high as 75%. In addition to the quantity of databases organizations are managing, the database sizes themselves are increasing, "and therefore, performance may well be a problem in the future," he adds.
Quest Backup Reporter for Oracle will be generally available on April 21. Its introduction to the market expands upon existing products from Quest, such as LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle, a front-end tool to RMAN for backup compression and encryption, and NetVault Backup APM for Oracle from the recently acquired Bakbone Software.