Changes in This Release for Backup and Recovery User's Guide

This preface contains:

Changes in Oracle Database Release 19c

The following are changes in the Oracle Database Backup and Recovery User’s Guide for Oracle Database Release 19c.

  • Recovery catalog support for PDBs

    You can connect to a recovery catalog when the target database is a pluggable database (PDB).

    See "Connecting as Target to a PDB".

  • Automatic deletion of flashback logs

    Flashback logs that are beyond the retention period are automatically deleted. Automatically deleting flashback logs simplifies the management of the fast recovery area and improves the performance of flashback database.

    See "Managing Space for Flashback Logs in the Fast Recovery Area".

Changes in Oracle Database Release 18c, Version 18.1

The following are changes in Oracle Database Backup and Recovery User’s Guide for Oracle Database release 18c, version 18.1.

New Features

Changes in Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2.0.1)

The following are changes in the Oracle Database Backup and Recovery User’s Guide for Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2.0.1).

New Features

Changes in Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.2)

The following are changes in Backup and Recovery User's Guide for Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.2).

New Features

The following are the new features in this release:

  • Oracle Virtual Private Database (VPD) for RMAN virtual private catalog

    The RMAN recovery catalog is created and managed using VPD. This provides better performance and scalability when a large number of virtual private catalogs are created.

Changes in Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.1)

The following are changes in Backup and Recovery User's Guide for Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.1).

New Features

The following are new features in this release:

  • Support for multitenant container databases and pluggable databases

    RMAN provides backup and recovery of multitenant container databases (CDBs), which are introduced in Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1). This support includes backup and point-in-time recovery of specified pluggable databases (PDBs).

  • SYSBACKUP Privilege

    The SYSBACKUP administrative privilege encompasses the permissions required for backup and recovery, including the ability to connect to a closed database. System administrators can grant SYSBACKUP instead of SYSDBA to users who perform backup and recovery, thus reducing the proliferation of the SYSDBA privilege. In contrast to SYSDBA, SYSBACKUP does not include data access privileges such as SELECT ANY TABLE.

  • Storage Snapshot Optimization

    Storage Snapshot Optimization enables you to use third-party technologies to take a storage snapshot of your database without putting the database in BACKUP mode. You can then use the snapshot to recover all or part of the database.

  • SQL Interface Improvements

    You can now issue most SQL commands in RMAN without preceding the command with the SQL keyword. For a few commands that exist in both RMAN and SQL and have very different uses, you can specify the SQL keyword to eliminate ambiguity. You no longer need to enclose the SQL command in quotes, which greatly simplifies the syntax when the SQL command itself requires quotation marks. The SQL ALTER command replaces the RMAN command.

    The new RMAN DESCRIBE command provides the functionality of the SQL*Plus DESCRIBE command.

  • Multisection Backup Improvements

    RMAN provides multisection backup support for incremental backups and image copies. Wherever possible, unused block compression and Block Change Tracking are used in conjunction with multisection incremental backups. This improves backup and restore performance.

  • Restoring and Recovering Files Over a Network

    You can now restore or recover a database, data files, tablespaces, or control files by using backup sets from a physical standby database. RMAN transfers the backup sets, over the network, to the destination host. This is useful in a Data Guard environment when you want to synchronize the standby and primary databases.

  • Active Database Duplication Improvements

    RMAN can now perform active database duplication using backup sets. When sufficient auxiliary channels are allocated, the auxiliary instance connects to the target instance and retrieves the backup sets over the network, thus reducing the processing load on the target instance. Unused block compression can be used during the duplication process, thus reducing the size of backups transported over the network. You can specify the binary compression level to be used. You can also encrypt backups and use multisection backups while performing active database duplication.

  • Cross-Platform Backup and Restore Improvements

    You can transport data across platforms by using full and incremental backup sets. Incremental backups can reduce overall application downtime during cross-platform data migration.

  • Recovering Tables and Table Partitions from RMAN Backups

    RMAN can recover tables and table partitions to a specified point in time from previously-created RMAN backups.

  • Unified auditing and RMAN

    Unified auditing consolidates all the Oracle Database audit records into one single audit trail. To use unified auditing, you must first upgrade your database to Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1) and then migrate your database to use unified auditing.

    See:

  • DUPLICATE enhancements

    You can specify that the duplicate database must not be opened using RESETLOGS after it is created. You may prefer not to open the duplicate database if you want to change the initialization parameters of the duplicate database or if opening the duplicate database may start services in the duplicate database that will conflict with the source database.