Performing Incomplete Recovery - RMAN Recipes for Oracle Database 12c - page 377

You can view restore point information in the V$RESTORE_POINT view. That view contains information such
as NAME, SCN, TIME, and DATABASE_INCARNATION#. Normal restore points are stored in the control file and will
eventually age out. Normally there's no need to drop a normal restore point.
If you need to keep a restore point indefinitely, then use a guaranteed restore point:
SQL> create restore point MY_G_RP guarantee flashback database;
The main difference between a guaranteed restore point and normal restore point is that a guaranteed restore
point is not eventually aged out of the control file. A guaranteed restore point will persist until you drop it. If you do
need to drop a restore point, you can do so as follows:
SQL> drop restore point MY_G_RP;
You can view the details of a restore point with this query:
SELECT name, scn, time, guarantee_flashback_database
FROM v$restore_point;
Guaranteed restore points do require a fast recovery area. However, for incomplete recovery using a guaranteed
restore point, you do not have to have flashback database enabled. For a database that does not have flashback
database enabled, if you have no guaranteed restore points, your database will indicate that flashback is off:
SQL> select flashback_on from v$database;
FLASHBACK_ON
------------------
NO
However, after you create a guaranteed restore point (in a database with flashback disabled), the flashback_on
column indicates that you can flash back to a restore point only:
SQL> select flashback_on from v$database;
FLASHBACK_ON
------------------
RESTORE POINT ONLY
Restoring a Noarchivelog Mode Database
Problem
You used RMAN to back up a database in noarchivelog mode. You now need to restore this database from an RMAN
backup.
Solution
When you restore a database in noarchivelog mode, you can choose to use a backup control file or the current control
file. You can run the following query to verify the type of control file you used to mount your database:
SQL> select open_mode, controlfile_type from v$database;