I’ll introduce how to backup Oracle database with RMAN step by step and another easier alternative solution in this blog.
Updated by Iris Lee on 2023/04/21
Oracle Database is a scalable, multi-model relational database management system (RDBMS) developed and supported by Oracle Corporation. As the most popular database worldwide according to Statista, Oracle database is widely used among global organizations. And certainly, its backup gets a huge amount of attention considering the importance of database backup for companies.
Typically, there are 2 ways in Oracle to back up the database, which are:
1. Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN): A program built into Oracle databases to perform database backup and recovery operations.
2. User Managed: Manual way of database backup by running SQL Plus commands and host operating commands specific to the users’ OS.
RMAN comes out on top among the two options because the method provides a single common interface to back up Oracle databases automatically across different operating systems, making the backup process user-friendly and easy. Thus, I’ll introduce mainly how to backup Oracle database with RMAN step by step in this blog.
There are multiple Oracle backup types in the database backup strategy, and to effectively use them, let’s get to know its types before we dive deeply into the database backup steps.
Full Backup: A backup that stores all of the file’s data block into the image copy or used data block into the backup set, neither of them cannot be used as the parent or a part of a subsequent incremental backup.
Incremental Backup (Level 0/1 Backup): A incremental backup falls into 2 categories: level 0 backup that contains used data block in the file, or a level 1 backup that stores changed data blocks since the parent backup was taken. Level 0 backup serves as the parent for a level 1 backup.
Multilevel Incremental Backups:
Differential Backup (Level 0/1 Incremental Backup): The default type of incremental backup that backs up all blocks modified since the last incremental backup at level 0 or 1.
Cumulative Backup (Level 0 Incremental Backup): Backs up all blocks modified since the last backup at level 0.
1. Start RMAN and connect it to an Oracle DB.
Connect to an Oracle database with “connect target” command.
% rman
RMAN> CONNECT TARGET Example
target database Password: password
connected to target database: Example (DBID=00000000)
2. Show the current RMAN configurations and change some parameters.
Run the “show all” command to view configurations.
RMAN> SHOW ALL
Change parameters as you wanted.
Change backup location:
RMAN> CONFIGURE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE DISK FORMAT '/changed backup/location _%t_%s_%p ';
Specify retention time:
RMAN> CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY TO RECOVERY WINDOW OF XX DAYS;
Compress the backup sets:
CONFIGURE DEVICE TYPE DISK/sbt BACKUP TYPE TO COMPRESSED BACKUPSET;
You can verify those changes by executing the “show all” command and add the “CLEAR” to the end of configuration command lines to restore default settings if you want.
3. Backup Oracle databases.
1) You can take an Oracle backup to backup set or image copy format, and it is recommended to use the former because only RMAN can access the format.
2) Make sure the Oracle database is running before you enter the RMAN commands.
Full backup without the archive logs:
RMAN> BACKUP AS BACKUPSET DATABASE
Backup archived redo logs while the Oracle DB is open:
RMAN> BACKUP AS BACKUPSET DATABASE PLUS ARCHIVELOG;
Backup tablespace only:
RMAN> BACKUP AS BACKUPSET TABLESPACE;
Incremental backups of the database:
Create a level 0 incremental backup as the base:
BACKUP INCREMENTAL LEVEL 0 DATABASE;
Create a level 1 cumulative incremental backup:
BACKUP INCREMENTAL LEVEL 1 CUMULATIVE DATABASE;
Create a level 1 differential incremental backup:
BACKUP INCREMENTAL LEVEL 1 DATABASE;
Implement incrementally updated backups:
It is an incremental backup strategy based on a level 0 datafile copy.
RECOVER COPY OF DATABASE
WITH TAG 'incr_update';
BACKUP
INCREMENTAL LEVEL 1
FOR RECOVER OF COPY WITH TAG 'incr_update'
DATABASE;
To see the RMAN backup files, add “Is” before on the created directory; and to see all the files, use “LIST” command at the RMAN prompt.
4. Assign backup tags to manage.
RMAN> BACKUP AS BACKUPSET TAG 'TAGNAME' TABLESPACE DBNAME;
5. Compress the RMAN backup.
RMAN> BACKUP AS COMPRESSED BACKUPSET TAG 'TAGNAME' TABLESPACE DBNAME;
Despite the convenience of backing up using Oracle RMAN, the tool also comes with quite a few questions, for instance, maintaining and managing multiple databases can be challenging; the overhead generated from separate instance catalog machines and high-consumption regular backups will degrade the database performance.
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