Oracle Backup and Recovery solutions

Basic solutions available for a backup and recovery strategy:

Backup techniques: comparison

Feature	Recovery Manager	User-managed	Data Pump exp
Closed database backup	Yes. Needs instance Mounted	Yes	No
Open database backup	Need use of BEGIN/END BACKUP	Need use of BEGIN/END BACKUP	Requires rollback or undo segments
Incremental backup	Yes	No	No
Corrupt block detection	Indentifies corrupt blocks and logs in V$DATABASE_BLOCK_CORRUPTION	No	Identifies corrupt blocks in the export log.
Automatic specification of files to include in a backup	Establishes name and location of all files to be backed up	Files must be located and copied manually	n/a
Backup repository	Backups recorded in the control file. You Can store backup metadata in a recovery catalog.	DBA needs to keep records.	n/a
Backup to a media manager	Yes. RMAN also supports proxy copy.	Backup to tape is manual or controlled by media manager.	Not supported.
Backup init.ora file	Yes	Yes	No
Backup password and networking files	No	Yes	No
Platform-independent language for backups	Yes	No	yes

Flashback features: Logical and Physical levels

Oracle Flashback features requires flashback data archiving. OFF for all tables (default). Turn it on for individual tables Operate at the logical level, using undo data.
Oracle flashback query	Specify target time. Run queries. Results displayed as they would have appeared at the target time.
Oracle flashback version query	View all version of rows that existed in a table within a time range
Oracle flashback transaction query	View changes made by a single transaction
Oracle flashback transaction	Reverse a transaction. Wow.
Oracle flashback table	Recover table or set of tables to a point in time.
Oracle flashback drop	Reverse the effects of a drop table.
Flashback database (RMAN: FLASHBACK DATABASE) operates at the physical level. Uses flashback logs. Can be used against specific data files. More efficient than database point-in-time recovery. Faster because does not require datafile restor. Uses flashback logs. Not enabled by default. Need a fast recovery area congifured. You can set guaranteed restore points (alias for an SCN).