101 Series Of Oracle In Google Cloud – Part III : Using GCP Snapshots To Clone a DB In A VM

15 Apr 101 Series Of Oracle In Google Cloud – Part III : Using GCP Snapshots To Clone a DB In A VM

Continuing on the GCP 101 series, I will explain how you use GCP Disk Snapshots to clone a DB in a GCP VM..

I again want to mention that first you should check with Oracle and your licensing rep on what is supported and licensed before doing any of this work.

I have 2 VMs that I built using the steps in my post 101 SERIES OF ORACLE IN GOOGLE CLOUD – PART I : BUILDING ASM AND DATABASE.

rene@renes-imac ~ % gcloud compute instances list | grep rene                                         
rene-ace-test-inst1  us-central1-c              n1-standard-8               ***.***.0.2   ***.***.***.134  RUNNING
rene-ace-test-inst2  us-central1-c              n1-standard-8               ***.***.0.3   ***.***.***.64    RUNNING

In the first VM I will create a table marker with the time close enough to the snapshot that I will take.

[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst1 ~]$ echo "
    CREATE TABLE system.snapshot_marker (instance_name VARCHAR2(16), host_name VARCHAR2(64), job_time TIMESTAMP);
    DELETE FROM system.snapshot_marker;
    INSERT INTO system.snapshot_marker SELECT instance_name, host_name, systimestamp FROM v\$instance;
    SELECT * FROM system.snapshot_marker;
" | sqlplus -s / as sysdba

Table created.

0 rows deleted.

1 row created.

INSTANCE_NAME
----------------
HOST_NAME
----------------------------------------------------------------
JOB_TIME
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
DBTEST
rene-ace-test-inst1
14-APR-21 19.18.19.530694 PM

Once I create the marker in the database in rene-ace-test-inst1, I will take a snapshot of the disk that contains the DATA DG which is where the files of DBTEST reside.

Rene@eclipsyss-mbp ~ % gcloud compute disks snapshot rene-ace-disk-asm1 \
--snapshot-names=rene-ace-disk-snap-asm1
Creating snapshot(s) rene-ace-disk-snap-asm1...done.  

Rene@eclipsyss-mbp ~ % gcloud compute snapshots list \
--filter="name=('rene-ace-disk-snap-asm1')"
NAME                     DISK_SIZE_GB  SRC_DISK                                STATUS
rene-ace-disk-snap-asm1  150           us-central1-c/disks/rene-ace-disk-asm1  READY

On rene-ace-test-inst2, which is currently also running a DB that I previously cloned also called DBTEST, I will stop the database and dismount the DATA DG.

[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ ${HOME}/working/crs_status.sh
Name                                          Target     State           Server                    State details
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ora.DATA.dg                                   ONLINE     ONLINE          rene-ace-test-inst2       STABLE 
ora.LISTENER.lsnr                             ONLINE     ONLINE          rene-ace-test-inst2       STABLE 
ora.asm                                       ONLINE     ONLINE          rene-ace-test-inst2       Started,STABLE 
ora.ons                                       OFFLINE    OFFLINE         rene-ace-test-inst2       STABLE 
ora.cssd                                      ONLINE     ONLINE          rene-ace-test-inst2       STABLE 
ora.dbtest.db                                 ONLINE     ONLINE          rene-ace-test-inst2       Open,HOME=/u01/app/o 
ora.diskmon                                   OFFLINE    OFFLINE         STABLE                     
ora.evmd                                      ONLINE     ONLINE          rene-ace-test-inst2       STABLE 

[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ . oraenv
ORACLE_SID = [ORCL] ? DBTEST
The Oracle base remains unchanged with value /u01/app/oracle
[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ srvctl stop database -d ${ORACLE_SID} -o abort

[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ asmcmd lsdg
State    Type    Rebal  Sector  Logical_Sector  Block       AU  Total_MB  Free_MB  Req_mir_free_MB  Usable_file_MB  Offline_disks  Voting_files  Name
MOUNTED  EXTERN  N         512             512   4096  1048576    102399    98440                0           98440              0             N  DATA/
[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ echo "ALTER diskgroup DATA DISMOUNT;" | sqlplus -s / as sysasm

Diskgroup altered.

Once I dismount the DATA DG, I will detach the current disk which the DATA DG uses and delete it.

rene@renes-imac ~ % gcloud compute instances detach-disk rene-ace-test-inst2 \
--disk=rene-ace-2-disk-asm1 \
--zone=us-central1-c
Updated [https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/eclipsys/zones/us-central1-c/instances/rene-ace-test-inst2].

rene@renes-imac ~ % gcloud compute disks delete rene-ace-2-disk-asm1 \
--zone=us-central1-c
The following disks will be deleted:
 - [rene-ace-2-disk-asm1] in [us-central1-c]

Do you want to continue (Y/n)?  y

Deleted [https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/eclipsys/zones/us-central1-c/disks/rene-ace-2-disk-asm1]

What I will do now is create an SSD Persistent disk based on the snapshot I created earlier

rene@renes-imac ~ % gcloud compute disks create rene-ace-2-disk-asm1 \
--type=pd-ssd \
--zone=us-central1-c \
--source-snapshot=rene-ace-disk-snap-asm1
Created [https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/eclipsys/zones/us-central1-c/disks/rene-ace-2-disk-asm1].
NAME                  ZONE           SIZE_GB  TYPE    STATUS
rene-ace-2-disk-asm1  us-central1-c  150      pd-ssd  READY


rene@renes-imac ~ % gcloud compute instances attach-disk rene-ace-test-inst2 \
--disk=rene-ace-2-disk-asm1 \
--device-name=rene-ace-2-disk-asm1 \
--mode=rw \
--zone=us-central1-c
Updated [https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/eclipsys/zones/us-central1-c/instances/rene-ace-test-inst2].

Now, the only thing that I need to do is to make sure that the disk I created is present in the UDEV rules and reload the rules

[root@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]# /usr/lib/udev/scsi_id -g -u -d /dev/sdb
0Google_PersistentDisk_rene-ace-2-disk-asm1
[root@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]# vi /etc/udev/rules.d/99-oracle-asmdevices.rules
[root@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]# cat /etc/udev/rules.d/99-oracle-asmdevices.rules
KERNEL=="sd?1", SUBSYSTEM=="block", PROGRAM=="/usr/lib/udev/scsi_id -g -u -d /dev/$parent", RESULT=="0Google_PersistentDisk_rene-ace-2-disk-asm1", SYMLINK+="oracleasm/asm-disk1", OWNER="oracle", GROUP="dba", MODE="0660"
[root@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]# /sbin/partprobe /dev/sdb1
[root@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]# /sbin/udevadm control --reload-rules
[root@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]# /sbin/partprobe /dev/sdb1
[root@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]# /sbin/udevadm control --reload-rules
[root@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]# ls -al /dev/oracleasm/*
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 7 Apr 15 00:55 /dev/oracleasm/asm-disk1 -> ../sdb1

Now that the disk that I created from the snapshot is ready, I will now mount it in ASM.

[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ export ORAENV_ASK=NO
[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ export ORACLE_SID=+ASM
[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ . oraenv
The Oracle base remains unchanged with value /u01/app/oracle
[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ echo "ALTER diskgroup DATA MOUNT;" | sqlplus -s / as sysasm

Diskgroup altered.

The only thing pending is to bring up the DBTEST and verify that the data is present from the system.snapshot_marker table that I created at the beginning

[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ export ORAENV_ASK=NO
[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ export ORACLE_SID=DBTEST
[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ . oraenv
The Oracle base remains unchanged with value /u01/app/oracle
[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ srvctl start database -d ${ORACLE_SID}
[oracle@rene-ace-test-inst2 ~]$ echo "
>    SELECT instance_name, host_name, systimestamp FROM v\$instance;
>    SELECT * FROM system.snapshot_marker;
> " | sqlplus -s / as sysdba


INSTANCE_NAME
----------------
HOST_NAME
----------------------------------------------------------------
SYSTIMESTAMP
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
DBTEST
rene-ace-test-inst2
15-APR-21 01.35.02.684737 AM +00:00


INSTANCE_NAME
----------------
HOST_NAME
----------------------------------------------------------------
JOB_TIME
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
DBTEST
rene-ace-test-inst1
14-APR-21 19.18.19.530694 PM

Hope this small blog post will help you understand a little bit better how the snapshots work in GCP and how they can be used with Oracle in a GCP VM.