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.
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.
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"RMAN Encrypted Backups" for information on using encrypted backupsFlashback 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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