What's New in Backup and Recovery?

This section describes new features of Recovery Manager in Oracle Database 10g Release 2, and provides pointers to additional information on each feature. For information on new features in Oracle Database 10g Release 1 and previous releases, refer to the documentation for those releases.

Oracle Database 10g Release 2 New Features in Backup and Recovery

The new features for this release greatly increase the manageability of backup and recovery with RMAN. Backup and recovery contains improvements to security, ease of use and performance. In addition, transporting data across platforms is more automated and simplified.

These features include:

RMAN Encrypted Backups

RMAN now supports several forms of encryption for backups created as backup sets, whether on disk or on tape. Encryption can be based upon passwords provided through RMAN or transparent encryption capabilities based upon the Oracle Encryption Wallet. Once configured, existing RMAN backup procedures take advantage of encryption features with no change.

See Also:
"RMAN Encrypted Backups" for information on using encrypted backups
Flashback Database Enhancements

Flashback Database can now reverse the effects of OPEN RESETLOGS operations, returning a database to points in time in ancestor or even sibling incarnations. This allows its use in many more data recovery scenarios. It also integrates with guaranteed restore points.
See Also:
- Oracle Database Backup and Recovery Basics for more details on configuring Flashback Database
Restore Points

Restore Points are aliases for SCNs, which eliminate the need to manually research and record SCNs or timestamps to use for Flashback Database and Flashback Table operations.
See Also:
- Oracle Database Backup and Recovery Basics for details about restore points
Guaranteed Restore Points

Guaranteed restore points ensure that RMAN FLASHBACK DATABASE can be used to return your database to a specific point in time. Using guaranteed restore points instead of regular logging for Flashback Database uses disk space more efficiently and reduces performance impact of flashback logging when the only requirement is return to a specific point in time. Used in this way, guaranteed restore points provide an efficient alternative to a storage snapshot.

Guaranteed restore points can also be used with normal Flashback Database logging, to guarantee FLASHBACK DATABASE works to any time as far back as the guaranteed restore point.
See Also:
- Oracle Database Backup and Recovery Basics for details about guaranteed restore points
Incremental Roll Forward of Database Copy

RMAN incremental backups can now be used to update a standby database with changes from a primary since a given SCN.
See Also:
- "Using RMAN Incremental Backups to Refresh a Standby Database" for details on using incremental backups to roll forward a standby database
Easy Conversion of Physical Standby Database to a Reporting Database

Easy conversion of a physical standby database to a reporting database and back to a standby is now possible, because Flashback Database can now reverse the activation of a standby database. A guaranteed restore point retains the state of the standby before activation, and after reporting the DBA can flash back the standby to that guaranteed restore point, use incremental backups to update the standby with changes from the primary during reporting, and resume managed recovery.
See Also:
- Oracle Data Guard Concepts and Administration for more details on this scenario
Database Transport Across Same Endian Platforms

RMAN now supports the CONVERT DATABASE command, which can prepare a whole database for transport to a new platform that uses the same endian format. Database transport across platforms provides a faster and easier way to move databases from one platform to another than previous solutions requiring the use of Data Pump.
See Also:
- "Performing Cross-Platform Database Transport" for details on transporting databases across platforms using RMAN
Transportable Tablespaces from Backup

RMAN now automates the creation of transportable tablespace sets using backups instead of the datafiles of the running database. With a single RMAN command, you can now create transportable sets without making the source datafiles read-only.
See Also:
- Chapter 14, "Creating Transportable Tablespace Sets from Backup with RMAN" for information on creating transportable tablespace sets from backup
Unused Block Compression

RMAN now creates more compact backups of datafiles, by skipping datafile blocks that are not currently used to store data. In previous releases, RMAN only supported NULL compression, which skipped space in datafiles that had never been allocated. No extra action is required on the part of the DBA to use this feature.
See Also:
- Oracle Database Backup and Recovery Reference for details about when RMAN uses Unused Block Compression for backups
Temporary Datafiles Are Re-Created on RMAN Recovery

Temporary datafiles that belong to locally managed temporary tablespaces are automatically re-created during database recovery. This eliminates the need to manually create temporary tablespaces after recovery.
See Also:
- Oracle Database Backup and Recovery Basics for details about how temporary files are re-created during RMAN recovery
Support for Backup Vaulting in Media Managers

When used with a media manager that supports backup vaulting, RMAN RESTORE... PREVIEW now reports any backups that are currently stored remotely, and RMAN RESTORE... PREVIEW RECALL now initiates retrieval of vaulted backups for use in an actual RESTORE operation.
See Also:
- Oracle Database Backup and Recovery Basics for details on RESTORE... PREVIEW support for backup vaulting
Backup and Recovery Enhancements in Enterprise Manager

Enterprise Manager now includes backup validation, enhanced backup reporting and scheduling, and automated creation and management of recovery catalog databases.
See Also:
- Oracle Database 2 Day DBA for details about Enterprise Manager enhancements related to backup and recovery