OCA Oracle Database 11g: Database Administration I: A Real-World Certification Guide

Performing RMAN offline backups

Now that we've introduced some of the terminology, we can look at the process of performing an actual backup. In this section, we'll look at RMAN offline backups—backups that are run when the database is shut down. These are also sometime referred to as closed backups. Although hot backups are more common when using RMAN, we'll find that the process is nearly identical, other than the state of the database. However, we should always remember the downside to offline backups. Although offline backups allow for complete recovery of a database, this is only the case if the database is in ARCHIVELOG mode. Generally, the only reason for a DBA to run offline backups is if the database is required to be in NOARCHIVELOG ...