Frequency of Hot backups using RMAN

Question

Hello.
After years of running various inhouse utilities to backup our Oracle databases we are now going to implement RMAN in our shop. We are running Oracle 10.2.0.4 EE databases on Solaris servers in Archivelog mode, so we'd like to perform "hot" backups. A caveat to this is that we also have "standby" databases that we manually manage via a series of scripts that works rather well and helps our CIO sleep at night.
So what we're trying to do is tackle one obstacle at a time. We'd like to implement RMAN hot backups (including archivelogs) without having RMAN remove the archivelog backups that are out there. We simply want RMAN to backup the archivelog files, we'll manage their movement and removal ourselves for the time being.
The script I have put together simply issues: Backup database plus archivelog format='/dumps/rman/F_Database_%d_set%s_%T_%U';
The configuration settngs (we want at least a 2 day recovery period) are:
RMAN configuration parameters are:
CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY TO RECOVERY WINDOW OF 2 DAYS;
CONFIGURE BACKUP OPTIMIZATION ON;
CONFIGURE DEFAULT DEVICE TYPE TO DISK; # default
CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP ON;
CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP FORMAT FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO '/dumps/rman/controlfiles/%F';
CONFIGURE DEVICE TYPE DISK PARALLELISM 2 BACKUP TYPE TO BACKUPSET;
CONFIGURE DATAFILE BACKUP COPIES FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO 1; # default
CONFIGURE ARCHIVELOG BACKUP COPIES FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO 1; # default
CONFIGURE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE DISK FORMAT '/dumps/rman/W_Database_%d_set%s_%T_%U';
CONFIGURE MAXSETSIZE TO UNLIMITED; # default
CONFIGURE ENCRYPTION FOR DATABASE OFF; # default
CONFIGURE ENCRYPTION ALGORITHM 'AES128'; # default
CONFIGURE ARCHIVELOG DELETION POLICY TO APPLIED ON STANDBY;
CONFIGURE SNAPSHOT CONTROLFILE NAME TO '/xora01/app/oracle/product/10g/dbs/snapcf_glprd.f'; # default
We are using an RMAN catalog.
So my question is, if I perform the backup of the database (using the above command) once or twice a week and back-up only the archivelogs on a daily basis, would I be covered and save space at the same time? I think this might cover me as far as the archivelogs are concerned as well until my management is more comfortable with RMAN and allows us to install/use Data Guard.
Thanks for you opinions/suggestions...

Answer 1

Hi,
So my question is, if I perform the backup of the database (using the above command) once or twice a week and back-up only the archivelogs on a daily basis, would I be covered and save space at the same time? I think this might cover me as far as the archivelogs are concerned as well until my management is more comfortable with RMAN and allows us to install/use Data Guard.Your idea also not bad to save disk space. it is also depends on database size and space availability on your server.
or else you can go for weekly once fulll backup, remaining days incremental backups & archivelog backups.
rman incremental backups take only chanegd blocks so it wont occupy much space
1) sunday - full backup - level 0
2) monday - inc1 & arch
3) tuesday - inc2 & arch
4) wednesday - inc1 & arch
5) thursday - inc2 & arch
6) friday - inc1 & arch
7) saturday - inc2 & arch... & so on...
Thanks