Managing Exports and Imports

There are two types of backups : Logical and Physical

Logical backup can be done with export utility where as Physical backup is again divided in to COLD backup and Hot backup.
Export and Import : Export is an Oracle utility used to store Oracle database data in export format (.dmp) files for later retrieval. These files can
be later used to write back in to Oracle database via Import. Import is used to retrieve Oracle database data found in export format files into an
Oracle database.

Main Tasks:
Data archival
Upgrading to new releases.
Backing up Oracle database
Moving between Oracle databases.

Export’s basic function to extract the object definition and table data from an Oracle database and store in Oracle binary format.

• Three Levels of export:

• Table Level
• Schema Level
• Database Level
•
Syntax : exp username/passwd parameters

Exports Parameters :
• Buffer - Size of a buffer
• File – Output File (default ‘ expdat.dmp’)
• Compress - Import data to one extent(Default’Y’)
• Grants – Export Grants
• Indexes – Export indexes
• Rows – Export data rows
• Constraints – export Constraints ( default ‘Y’)
• Log – logfile of screen output
• Full – Entire File (default ‘N’)
• Owner – List of Owner Names
• Tables – List of table names
• Triggers – Export triggers(Y)

Export Examples

• exp system/manager file=exp.dmp log=exp.log full=y

• Exp system/manager file=steeve.dmp log=steeve.log tables=emp

Incremental,Cumulative and Complete Exports

• Incremental Exports:
• An incremental Exports backups up only tables that have changed since the last Incremental,Cumulative or Complete Export.
• An Incremental export exports the table definition and all its data, not just changed rows.(i.e., Entire table)

Cumulative Export

A cumulative export backups tables that have changed since the last cumulative or complete export. A cumulative export includes all the
incremental exports done from last cumulative or Complete into a single cumulative export file.

Complete Exports

A complete export establishes a base for incremental and cumulative exports. It is also similar to full database export except it updates the tables
that track Incremental and Cumulative exports.
Complete export Three weeks
Cumulative export every Sunday

An Incremental export every night

Import Parameters
 Buffer - Size of databuffer
File – output file
Grants – export grants
Indexes – export indexes
Rows – export data rows
Log – logfile of screen output
Full – Entire file
Tables – List of table names
Show – Lists file contents
Touser – To which user you want to import
Commit – commit array insert
From user – From which user

Import backup Syntax

Imp system/manager full =y file=export.dmp log=steeve.log ignore=y

We do logical backups for
1. Moving database backups from one database to another
2. Moving database objects from one user account to another user account
3. When migrating from one platform to another platform

4.For reorg

Cold Backup

• Cold backup is taken when database is shutdown normal.

• The following files should be backedup.
• All datafiles
• All Control files
• All Online redo logs
• The init.ora

Hot Backup

• Hot backup is taken when the database is up and running in Archive log mode. Hot backup can be taken on tablespace by tablespace
mechanism. Which is only the method recommended.
• You must put the tablespace in begin backup mode and after finishing the backup you must set it to end backup mode. It will generate
lot of redo entries.

Hot backup syntax

• Alter tablespace tablespace_name begin backup;

• Alter tablespace tablespace_name end backup;
• Select status from v$backup;
• Not ACTIVE – status is not in backup mode
• ACTIVE – Status is in backup mode.

What is import/export and why does one need it?

Oracle's export (exp) and import (imp) utilities are used to perform logical database backup and recovery. When exporting, database objects are
dumped to a binary file which can then be imported into another Oracle database.
These utilities can be used to move data between different machines, databases or schema. However, as they use a proprietary binary file format,
they can only be used between Oracle databases. One cannot export data and expect to import it into a non-Oracle database.
Various parameters are available to control what objects are exported or imported. To get a list of available parameters, run the exp or imp
utilities with the help=yes parameter.
The export/import utilities are commonly used to perform the following tasks:
 Backup and recovery (small databases only, say < +50GB, if bigger, use RMAN instead)
 Move data between Oracle databases on different platforms (for example from Solaris to Windows)
 Reorganization of data/ eliminate database fragmentation (export, drop and re-import tables)
 Upgrade databases from extremely old versions of Oracle (when in-place upgrades are not supported by the Database Upgrade
Assistant anymore)
 Detect database corruption. Ensure that all the data can be read
 Transporting tablespaces between databases
 Etc.
NOTE: It is generally advised not to use exports as the only means of backing-up a database. Physical backup methods (for example, when you
use RMAN) are normally much quicker and supports point in time based recovery (apply archivelogs after recovering a database). Also, exp/imp
is not practical for large database environments.
How does one use the import/export utilities?
Look for the "imp" and "exp" executables in your $ORACLE_HOME/bin directory. One can run them interactively, using command line
parameters, or using parameter files. Look at the imp/exp parameters before starting. These parameters can be listed by executing the following
commands: "exp help=yes" or "imp help=yes".
The following examples demonstrate how the imp/exp utilities can be used:
exp scott/tiger file=emp.dmp log=emp.log tables=emp rows=yes indexes=no
exp scott/tiger file=emp.dmp tables=(emp,dept)
imp scott/tiger file=emp.dmp full=yes
imp scott/tiger file=emp.dmp fromuser=scott touser=scott tables=dept
Using a parameter file:
exp userid=scott/tiger@orcl parfile=export.txt
... where export.txt contains:
BUFFER=10000000
FILE=account.dmp
FULL=n
OWNER=scott
GRANTS=y
COMPRESS=y
NOTE: If you do not like command line utilities, you can import and export data with the "Schema Manager" GUI that ships with Oracle
Enterprise Manager (OEM).

Can one export a subset of a table?

From Oracle 8i one can use the QUERY= export parameter to selectively unload a subset of the data from a table. You may need to escape
special chars on the command line, for example: query=\"where deptno=10\". Look at these examples:
exp scott/tiger tables=emp query="where deptno=10"
exp scott/tiger file=abc.dmp tables=abc query=\"where sex=\'f\'\" rows=yes

Can one monitor how fast a table is imported?

If you need to monitor how fast rows are imported from a running import job, try one of the following methods:

Method 1:
select substr(sql_text,instr(sql_text,'INTO "'),30) table_name,
rows_processed,
round((sysdate-to_date(first_load_time,'yyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss'))*24*60,1) minutes,
trunc(rows_processed/((sysdate-to_date(first_load_time,'yyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss'))*24*60))
rows_per_min
from sys.v_$sqlarea
where sql_text like 'INSERT %INTO "%'
and command_type = 2
and open_versions > 0;
For this to work one needs to be on Oracle 7.3 or higher (7.2 might also be OK). If the import has more than one table, this statement will only
show information about the current table being imported.

Method 2:

Use the FEEDBACK=N import parameter. This parameter will tell IMP to display a dot for every N rows imported. For example,
FEEDBACK=1000 will show a dot after every 1000 row.

Can one import tables to a different tablespace?

Oracle offers no parameter to specify a different tablespace to import data into. Objects will be re-created in the tablespace they were originally
exported from. One can alter this behaviour by following one of these procedures:

Pre-create the table(s) in the correct tablespace:

 Import the dump file using the INDEXFILE= option
 Edit the indexfile. Remove remarks and specify the correct tablespaces.
 Run this indexfile against your database, this will create the required tables in the appropriate tablespaces
 Import the table(s) with the IGNORE=Y option.

Change the default tablespace for the user:
 Revoke the "UNLIMITED TABLESPACE" privilege from the user
 Revoke the user's quota from the tablespace from where the object was exported. This forces the import utility to create tables in the
user's default tablespace.
 Make the tablespace to which you want to import the default tablespace for the user
 Import the table

Does one need to drop/ truncate objects before importing?
Before one imports rows into already populated tables, one needs to truncate or drop these tables to get rid of the old data. If not, the new data
will be appended to the existing tables. One must always DROP existing Sequences before re-importing. If the sequences are not dropped, they
will generate numbers inconsistent with the rest of the database.
Note: It is also advisable to drop indexes before importing to speed up the import process. Indexes can easily be recreated after the data was
successfully imported.

Can one import/export between different versions of Oracle?

Different versions of the import utility are upwards compatible. This means that one can take an export file created from an old export version,
and import it using a later version of the import utility. This is quite an effective way of upgrading a database from one release of Oracle to the
next.
Oracle also ships some previous catexpX.sql scripts that can be executed as user SYS enabling older imp/exp versions to work (for backwards
compatibility). For example, one can run $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/catexp7.sql on an Oracle 8 database to allow the Oracle 7.3 exp/imp
utilities to run against an Oracle 8 database.

Can one export to multiple files?/ Can one beat the Unix 2 Gig limit?
From Oracle8i, the export utility supports multiple output files. This feature enables large exports to be divided into files whose sizes will not
exceed any operating system limits (FILESIZE= parameter). When importing from multi-file export you must provide the same filenames in the
same sequence in the FILE= parameter. Look at this example:
exp SCOTT/TIGER FILE=D:F1.dmp,E:F2.dmp FILESIZE=10m LOG=scott.log

Use the following technique if you use an Oracle version prior to 8i:

Create a compressed export on the fly. Depending on the type of data, you probably can export up to 10 gigabytes to a single file. This example
uses gzip. It offers the best compression I know of, but you can also substitute it with zip, compress or whatever.

# create a named pipe

mknod exp.pipe p
# read the pipe - output to zip file in the background
gzip < exp.pipe > scott.exp.gz &
# feed the pipe
exp userid=scott/tiger file=exp.pipe ...

Import directly from a compressed export:

# create a name pipe
mknod imp_pipe p
# read the zip file and output to pipe
gunzip < exp_file.dmp.gz > imp_pipe &
# feed the pipe
imp system/pwd@sid file=imp_pipe log=imp_pipe.log ...
In case of low-performance system, it is better to add RECORDLENGTH parameter with tiny value to ensure that gzip has enough time to extract
data before imp reads it:
imp system/pwd@sid RECORDLENGTH=4096 file=imp_pipe log=imp_pipe.log ...

How can one improve Import/ Export performance?

EXPORT:
 Set the BUFFER parameter to a high value (e.g. 2Mb -- entered as an integer "2000000")
 Set the RECORDLENGTH parameter to a high value (e.g. 64Kb -- entered as an integer "64000")
 Use DIRECT=yes (direct mode export)
 Stop unnecessary applications to free-up resources for your job.
 If you run multiple export sessions, ensure they write to different physical disks.
 DO NOT export to an NFS mounted filesystem. It will take forever.

IMPORT:
 Create an indexfile so that you can create indexes AFTER you have imported data. Do this by setting INDEXFILE to a filename and
then import. No data will be imported but a file containing index definitions will be created. You must edit this file afterwards and
supply the passwords for the schemas on all CONNECT statements.
 Place the file to be imported on a separate physical disk from the oracle data files
 Increase DB_CACHE_SIZE (DB_BLOCK_BUFFERS prior to 9i) considerably in the init$SID.ora file
 Set the LOG_BUFFER to a big value and restart oracle.
 Stop redo log archiving if it is running (ALTER DATABASE NOARCHIVELOG;)
 Create a BIG tablespace with a BIG rollback segment inside. Set all other rollback segments offline (except the SYSTEM rollback
segment of course). The rollback segment must be as big as your biggest table (I think?)
 Use COMMIT=N in the import parameter file if you can afford it
 Use STATISTICS=NONE in the import parameter file to avoid time consuming to import the statistics
 Remember to run the indexfile previously created

What are the common Import/ Export problems?

 ORA-00001: Unique constraint (...) violated
You are importing duplicate rows. Use IGNORE=YES to skip tables that already exist (imp will give an error if the object is re-
created).
 ORA-01555: Snapshot too old
 Ask your users to STOP working while you are exporting or try using parameter CONSISTENT=NO
 ORA-01562: Failed to extend rollback segment
Create bigger rollback segments or set parameter COMMIT=Y while importing
 IMP-00015: Statement failed ... object already exists...
Use the IGNORE=Y import parameter to ignore these errors, but be careful as you might end up with duplicate rows.

Using imp/exp accross different Oracle versions

If exp and imp are used to export data from an Oracle database with a different version than the database in which is imported, then the following
rules apply:

1. exp must be of the lower version

2. imp must match the target version.

exp

Objects owned by SYS cannot be exported.

Parameter File Method

> exp scott/tiger PARFILE=params.dat

The params.dat file contains the following information:

FILE=scott.dmp
OWNER=scott
GRANTS=y
ROWS=y
COMPRESS=y

Command-Line Method

> exp scott/tiger FILE=scott.dmp OWNER=scott GRANTS=y ROWS=y COMPRESS=y

Export Messages

Information is displayed about the release of Export you are using and the release of Oracle Database that you are connected to. Then, status
messages similar to the following are shown:

.
.
. about to export SCOTT's tables via Conventional Path ...
. . exporting table BONUS 0 rows exported
. . exporting table DEPT 4 rows exported
. . exporting table EMP 14 rows exported
. . exporting table SALGRADE 5 rows exported
.
.
.
Export terminated successfully without warnings.