Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Allocate channel for maintenance device type disk format 'c:\backup_copies';
Delete noprompt obsolete recovery window of 31 days;
Creating Archival Backups
There may be times when you want a backup to not be subject to a given retention criteria.
This might be an end-of-the-year backup, or some backup required for legal reasons. In this
case, you will want to perform an archival backup.
An archival backup is a completely self-contained backup of a database. It contains
backups of the database datafiles, archived redo logs, and control file required to restore
the database to the point in time that it was backed up.
An archival backup is created through the use of the
KEEP
keyword of the
RMAN BACKUP
command. You can indicate that the backup should be kept for a specific period of time.
For example, you can say
KEEP UNTIL TIME 'sysdate+25'
to keep the backup for 25 days,
as in this example:
Backup database keep until time 'sysdate+25' tag test_backup;
When the keep time expires, the backup will be considered eligible for removal by
the
RMAN DELETE OBSOLETE
command. Note that the backup will be obsolete
after the
KEEP
time, even if that time is less than the default retention criteria.
You can also indicate that the backup should be kept indefinitely by using the
KEEP
FOREVER
command, as seen here:
Backup database keep forever tag test_backup_one;
Any archival backup that uses the
KEEP FOREVER
will require the use of a
recovery catalog, otherwise RMAN will generate an error.
Summary
In this chapter, we introduced you to RMAN, Oracle's backup and recovery tool of choice.
We discussed the many features that make RMAN truly a power backup and recovery
tool. We discussed the architecture of RMAN, including backup set pieces, which are the
critical component of any RMAN backup.
We then talked about how to configure RMAN so that it is easy to use. Persistent configu-
ration parameters are the key to RMAN's ease of use, and understanding what they are and
what they do is key to understanding how RMAN works. There are a number of different
configuration options to consider, including parallelism, compression, and encryption, and
the OCP exam is poised to ask you about all of them.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search