Backup Optimization in RMAN Backup
Backup Optimization in RMAN Backup
•You can see whether your backup optimization is on or off by issuing following commands,
Now the question is if backup optimization is on then how RMAN behaves while taking
backup. In the following section I will try to make understand.
•In a straight-forward if you enable backup optimization, then the BACKUP command skips
backing up files when the identical file has already been backed up to the specified device
type. Now question is how RMAN check whether the file is identical or not?
-In case of datafile RMAN compares the DBID, checkpoint SCN, creation SCN, and
RESETLOGS SCN and time as a datafile already in a backup. If they are identical then skip
to take backup again.
-In case of archived redo log RMAN compares thread, sequence number, and RESETLOGS
SCN and time.
Besides these comparison RMAN further checks to determine whether to skip the file,
because both the retention policy and the backup duplexing feature are factors in the
algorithm that determines whether RMAN has sufficient backups on the specified device
type.
•You can override optimization at any time by specifying the FORCE option on the
BACKUP command.
Like,
Question: What is the RMAN backup optimization feature and how does it work?
When you turn on backup optimization, all backup commands will skip backups of any file if
it has not changed and if it has already been backed up to the allocated device type. A file
can be any dbf file, an archived redo log or an RMAN "backup set". Here are some of the
main features of the RMAN configure backup optimization on command:
In order to back up the flash recovery area itself using RMAN, you must set configure backup
optimization to ON.
Setting backup optimization on stops the backups of Read Only Tablespaces (ROT), whenever
a valid backup of the tablespace already exists in the RMAN catalog database.
If backup optimization is enabled, then RMAN skips backups of archived logs that have
already been backed up to the allocated device.