Chapter 17 Configuring RMAN

Abstract

Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) is Oracle’s flagship backup and recovery (B&R) tool. It has been available since Oracle Database 8. This tool is provided by default when you install the Oracle software (for both the Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition). RMAN provides a robust and flexible set of B&R features. The following list highlights some of the most salient qualities:

• Easy-to-use commands for backup, restore, and recovery.

• Ability to track which files have been backed up and to where. Manages the deletion of obsolete backups and archive-redo logs.

• Parallelization: can use multiple processes for backup, restore, and recovery.

• Incremental backups that only back up changes since the previous backup.

• Block-level recovery, which allows you to recover individual blocks in a datafile.

• Compression and encryption features.

• Integration with media managers for tape backups.

• Backup validation and testing.

• Cross-platform data conversion.

• Data Recovery Advisor, which assists with diagnosing failures and providing solutions.

• Ability to detect corrupt blocks in datafiles.

• Advanced reporting capabilities from the RMAN command line.