Oracle RMAN backup compression tips Oracle Database Tips by Donald Burleson

Question:  Where can I find Oracle RMAN backup compression software which will allow me to reduce the size of my backups without it taking twice as long to back up?

Answer: You can compress Oracle backups with Oracle and with 3rd party software (e.g. Veritas, Legato, ADSM).  You can also use Oracle compression as an encryption tool as noted in the book "Oracle Security Privacy Auditing".

Oracle 10g has amazing RMAN backup compression enhancements - See the book "Oracle 10g New Features" for complete details on Oracle backup compression.  Oracle 10g backup compression can curt-in-half the time required to perform backups.

Dr. Hall, a respected Oracle author, notes the new features for RMAN backup compression:

The AS COMPRESSED BACKUPSET option of the RMAN BACKUP command allows RMAN to perform binary compression and they are automatically decompressed during recovery.

The following RMAN compression examples assume that some persistent parameters are configured in a similar manner to those listed below:

CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY TO RECOVERY WINDOW OF 7 DAYS;

CONFIGURE DEFAULT DEVICE TYPE TO DISK;

CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP ON;

CONFIGURE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE DISK FORMAT '/backups/MYSID/%d_DB_%u_%s_%p';The AS COMPRESSED BACKUPSET option can be used explicitly in the backup command:

# Whole database and archivelogs.

BACKUP AS COMPRESSED BACKUPSET DATABASE PLUS ARCHIVELOG;

# Datafiles 1 and 5 only.

BACKUP AS COMPRESSED BACKUPSET DATAFILE

# Configure compression.

CONFIGURE DEVICE TYPE DISK PARALLELISM 1 BACKUP TYPE TO COMPRESSED BACKUPSET;

# Whole database and archivelogs.

BACKUP DATABASE PLUS ARCHIVELOG;

In sum, Oracle RMAN backup compression improves backup and recovery time, reduced storage and Oracle backup compression also serves as an encryption mechanism.
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