When Dbvisit is shipping archive logs to the standby server, the archive logs are stored in the Dbvisit ARCHDEST location. This location is not the same as the Database Archive Destination. When you perform a Graceful Switchover and perform your normal RMAN backup on the now primary database, you could run into RMAN errors with regards to the archive logs. For example:

RMAN> backup archivelog all format '/backup/rman/a-%U';
  
Starting backup at 21/05/2013:10:32:37
current log archived
using target database control file instead of recovery catalog
allocated channel: ORA_DISK_1
channel ORA_DISK_1: SID=34 device type=DISK
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-00569: =============== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS ===============
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-03002: failure of backup command at 05/21/2013 10:32:38
RMAN-06059: expected archived log not found, loss of archived log compromises recoverability
ORA-19625: error identifying file /u01/app/oracle/fast_recovery_area/TESTDB/archivelog/2013_05_17/o1_mf_1_19563_8sbj6lfr_.arc
ORA-27037: unable to obtain file status
Linux-x86_64 Error: 2: No such file or directory
Additional information: 3

This is due to RMAN looking for the archive logs in your default database archive destination (in most cases it will be in your fast/flash recovery area). But as you just performed a Graceful Switchover the archive logs are not located in your default location. To resolve this error you will need to update the controlfile (or catalog if one is in use) by running the following command from rman:

rman> crosscheck archivelog all;

Once this is done you can re-run the backup and it should now complete.

If you do want to create a once-off backup from the archive logs in the Dbvisit ARCHDEST then you can first catalog them and then run a backup.

In the following example, the Dbvisit ARCHDEST location /u01/app/oracle/archive/testdb is used and all the archive logs are uncompressed in this location. The following commands first catalog the files, then run a crosscheck concluding with an archivelog backup. Note these are just examples and you can modify them to suit your environment:

rman> catalog start with '/u01/app/oracle/archive/testdb/';

rman> crosscheck archivelog all;

rman> backup archivelog all;

Summary

Following a Graceful Switchover or a Failover (Activation of standby), it is recommended to run the rman command crosscheck archivelog all before running any backups on the new primary database.

Anton Els May 21, 2013 11:37