Oracle Backup & Recovery Techniques - Oracle 10g Database Administration Concepts and Implementation Made Simple - page 321

backups, Control file etc. Moreover, this parameter must be
defined first before the other.
SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET
DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST_SIZE = 12G SCOPE=BOTH;
This statement will set the Flash Recovery Area size to be 12
GB. SCOPE=BOTH means that this change will not only be
implemented as soon as the statement executes but will remain
in effect even if the database is restarted. Next we will execute
the following statement to let Oracle Instance know the location
of Flash Recovery Area.
SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST =
'/flash_recovery_area' SCOPE=BOTH;
To disable Flash Recovery Area, clear the
DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST parameter first and then
DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST_SIZE.
Oracle manages this area by deleting the unwanted files and if
the area reaches 85 percent, a warning message is written to alert
log file and when it reaches 95 percent another critical message
is written. These messages also appear on EM Database Control
as well as under DBA_OUTSTANDING_ALERTS. For details
relating the Flash Recovery Area, we can use the
V$RECOVERY_FILE_DEST dynamic performance review.
Oracle has also developed two commands to backup the Flash
Recovery Area using RMAN. These are as follows.
RMAN> backup recovery area;
This command will back up the whole recovery area to tape and
to back up just the files in the recovery area use the following
command.
RMAN> backup recovery files;