Preferred Credentials for Backup and Recovery

Preferred Credentials for Backup and Recovery

The Host Credentials form always includes a checkbox labelled Save as Preferred Credential . If you check this box before performing your action, then the provided credentials are stored persistently for the currently logged-in Oracle user. The preferred credentials are reused by default whenever you log in as that user and perform operations requiring host credentials.

Note:

In situations in which the database is shut down, as is required for some database recovery operations, you may still be prompted for host credentials even if you save preferred credentials.

Configuring the Flash Recovery Area

You can configure a flash recovery area when first creating the database. If you did not perform this task at database creation time, however, then you can create a flash recovery area for your database now.

To configure a flash recovery area:

1. On the host operating system, create a directory to hold the flash recovery area. Make sure that the permissions for this directory allow Oracle to create files here.

2. From the Database Home page, click Maintenance. The Maintenance property page appears.

3. In the Backup/Recovery section, select Recovery Settings. The Recovery Settings page appears.

9-6 Oracle Database 2 Day DBA

4. In the Flash Recovery section, enter the path to the flash recovery area location (the path to the directory on disk you created in step 1), and your desired flash recovery area size. Make sure the Apply changes to SPFILE only box is not checked, then click Apply to save your settings.

It is important to monitor space usage in the flash recovery area to ensure that it is large enough to contain backups and other recovery-related files. The High Availability section of the home page lists the percentage of flash recovery area space available. Click Usable Flash Recovery Area to navigate to the Recovery Settings page, which contains a Flash Recovery Area Usage graph showing how much space is allocated to each type of file and how much space is free.

Configuring ARCHIVELOG Mode For the Database

If you did not configure ARCHIVELOG mode when you first created your database, then configure it now with the following procedure. This procedure specifies that archived logs should be stored only in the flash recovery area, which is the best practice for managing archived redo logs.

To place the database in ARCHIVELOG mode:

1. On the Maintenance page, click Recovery Settings. The Recovery Settings property page appears.

2. In the Media Recovery section, check ARCHIVELOG Mode if it is not already checked. Under the ARCHIVELOG Mode checkbox is a list of up to ten possible log archiving locations. The last one is set to USE_DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST, indicating that the flash recovery area should be an archiving destination. You can specify other locations on disk as well.

For ease of database management, the best practice is to use the flash recovery area as your only redo log archiving destination. Leave the other locations blank to store your archived logs in the flash recovery area only.

3. Click Apply to save your changes. If your database was not previously running in ARCHIVELOG mode, you are

prompted to restart your database so that the switch to ARCHIVELOG mode can take effect.

4. Click Yes to indicate that you want to restart the database. The Restart Database:Specify Host and Target Database Credentials page appears.

5. Enter your credentials and click OK. The Restart Database:Confirmation page appears.

6. Click Yes to begin the restart process.

7. Make a consistent (that is, offline) backup of your whole database immediately after switching your database into ARCHIVELOG mode.

Caution: Backups from before the switch to ARCHIVELOG mode cannot be used to restore and recover the database to a point in time after the switch. Thus, if you do not immediately take a backup after switching, you are running your database without a backup.

See "Performing and Scheduling Backups with Enterprise Manager" on page 9-11 for more details on offline database backups.

Performing Backup and Recovery 9-7

Configuring Backup Settings

Assuming you have a flash recovery area configured and are running in ARCHIVELOG mode, you can configure a number of settings and policies that determine how backups are stored, which data is backed up, and how long backups are retained before being purged from the flash recovery area. You can also configure settings to optimize backup performance for your environment. This section provides information on concepts underlying the available settings, and information on how to change them through Enterprise Manager.