Features of the Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN)

Oracle Recovery Management (RMAN) has a number of features that can be used to help with the backup and recovery process, which has two versions of the command line and GUI. Typically, RMAN performs and standardizes the backup and recovery processes and, by doing so, reduces the errors that DBAs make during this process. The main functions of RMAN are as follows:

Back up databases, tablespaces, data files, control files, and archive logs

The RMAN tool can back up Oracle databases in a number of ways, providing a lot of flexibility for backup and recovery methods.

Compress a backup by determining which blocks have been modified and only the modified blocks are backed up

One way RMAN improves backup performance is to compress backups. RMAN recognizes which blocks have been modified and only backs up the modified blocks and does not back up empty blocks.

Perform an incremental backup

RMAN has the ability to perform incremental backups and full backups. Incremental backups only back up content that has been modified since the last backup, which allows you to perform a full backup only one day a week, and an incremental backup for the other days, which improves the performance of the backup.

Provides scripting features for multiple tasks merge execution

One way that Rman improves your backup, restore, and restore operations is to allow the Rman command to be scripted. The script may eat multiple RMAN commands stored in the recovery directory. You can call and execute these scripts repeatedly to complete the task.

Log backup operations

As time progresses, RMAN has the ability to record all backup states. This information is stored in logs and trace files.

Third-party tape media software integration

The Rman worker has APIs to many third-party tape media software, which allows Rman to run in other non-Oracle backup tools or to be integrated into a common backup strategy by an organization.

Provide catalog information reports and lists

You can use the RMAN list and the show commands to query the information stored in the Get directory about backups, which provide an effective way to display information.

Store information about backups in the directory of an Oracle database

Information about the backup is stored in the recovery directory. This information can be restored at any time in the future.

Provides performance benefits, such as parallel processing of backup and restore operations

Backup and restore operations can be processed in parallel. It supports the assignment of workloads to different magnetic leads and disk devices, which can improve performance.

Create a copy of a database for test or development purposes

A copy of the database can be created from an RMAN backup and can be used for testing purposes.

To test whether a backup is restored successfully

The VALID command provided by RMAN checks to see if the backup is valid.

Detect if backups in the Media Library are still available

The Crosscheck command provided by RMAN can detect whether backup media and directory information match.