PowerProtect Data Manager Appliance 5.15.0.0 Oracle RMAN User Guide

Oracle Incremental Merge protection with Oracle RMAN agent

Oracle Incremental Merge backups enable you to create a full image copy backup of a database every day for the cost of an incremental backup, resulting in faster backups with better deduplication and faster restores.

Oracle Incremental Merge protection is implemented through the PowerProtect Data Manager Appliance UI and the integrated Oracle RMAN agent workflows. PowerProtect Data Manager Appliance 19.13 and later supports the Oracle Incremental Merge backups and restores on Linux for both stand-alone and Oracle RAC systems. PowerProtect Data Manager Appliance 19.14 and later supports the Data Guard federated mode with the Oracle Incremental Merge operations.

The first Oracle Incremental Merge backup of a database to a DD storage unit is a full image copy backup, which begins the cycle of incremental updates. Each subsequent backup is a level 1 incremental backup of the database. The changed blocks are applied to the full backup to create an up-to-date synthetic full backup. The synthetic full backup is easier to restore as an image copy than a traditional RMAN backup. Oracle Incremental Merge enables "forever incremental" functionality through the creation of the synthetic full backups.

The Oracle Incremental Merge operations support both DD BoostFS mount-based backups and restores and NFS mount-based backups and restores. The BoostFS mount-based operations require the installation of DD BoostFS on the application host, to provide a standard file system mount point to the application. With direct access to the BoostFS mount point, the application can leverage the storage and network efficiencies of the DD Boost protocol for backups and restores.

You can perform Oracle Incremental Merge backups of both pfile-based and spfile-based Oracle databases. Oracle Incremental Merge supports scheduled backups through the BoostFS or NSF protocol. You can perform both centralized and self-service Oracle Incremental Merge backups, based on the Oracle Incremental backup policy that you configure in the PowerProtect Data Manager Appliance UI.

Oracle Incremental Merge supports the following operations:

• Full backups—A full backup creates a full copy of the database plus archive logs. The full copy is used with an incremental backup to create a synthetic full backup. Backups are protected by a DD retention lock

• Synthetic full backups—An incremental backup backs up the changed data blocks, which are applied to the previous full backup to create a new synthetic full backup. This synthetic full backup is stored in a new location and then cataloged and protected by a DD retention lock.

  NOTE:When the synthetic full backups are part of an Oracle Incremental Merge protection policy, ensure that you run a manual full backup in the following cases:

  • You move an asset from one policy to a second policy, where the second policy has only a Synthetic Full schedule.
  • The backups fail continuously at the catalog merge steps.
• Archive log backups—The Oracle database archive logs are backed up during the full and incremental backups. Oracle Incremental Merge provides an option to back up only the archive logs. The archive log backups are protected by a DD retention lock.
• Restore operations—You can perform centralized restores and live mount or instant access recovery of Oracle Incremental Merge backups from the PowerProtect Data Manager Appliance UI. A live mount operation is a live migration of the database by using the image-based backup copies. The instant access recovery provides access to the database files directly from the protection storage without restoring the database to the client.
• Mount operations—An Oracle Incremental Merge backup performs open and write operations to a local disk or NFS mount. For BoostFS mount-based operations, the storage unit is mounted by using a DD BoostFS FUSE mount operation and the operations are performed on the mounted storage unit. The latest PowerProtect Oracle RMAN Agent Administration Guide provides details about the ddbmoim command that you use to perform a mount operation.
• Unmount operations—An Oracle Incremental Merge operation unmounts the storage unit from the local mount path. A BoostFS mount-based operation uses a DD BoostFS FUSE mount. The latest PowerProtect Oracle RMAN Agent Administration Guide provides details about the ddbmoim command that you use to perform an unmount operation.
• MTree replication operations—You can perform the MTree replication of an Oracle Incremental Merge backup on a primary system to a secondary system.
• Cloud tier operations—You can perform the Oracle Incremental Merge backups and restores by using the cloud tier. For example, you can perform instant access recovery after recalling the required files from the cloud tier to the active tier on DD.

PowerProtect Data Manager Appliance obtains the metadata from all Oracle Incremental Merge backups during copy discovery. All the fast copies of Oracle Incremental Merge backups can be used later for the Oracle Incremental Merge restores, disaster recovery, or instant access recovery.

Before you perform any Oracle Incremental Merge operations, you must complete the procedures in Installation requirements for Oracle Incremental Merge. You must configure an Oracle Incremental Merge protection policy in the PowerProtect Data Manager Appliance UI for all the assets to be protected by Oracle Incremental Merge backups.

ORCL =
  (DESCRIPTION =
    (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = blrv041d101.blr.lab.emc.com)(PORT = 1521))
    (CONNECT_DATA =
      (SERVER = DEDICATED)
      (SERVICE_NAME = orcl.lab.emc.com)
    )
  )