Oracle Backup Manager

Backup Manager is one of the tools available to manage the backup and recovery of Oracle databases. Most Oracle utilities start out as command-line utilities and these utilities are invoked from within the operating system command-line interface. With the advent of GUIs, Oracle has moved most of its tools to run within a GUI environment. Oracle Enterprise Manager is the GUI tool that encompasses the database management and control utilities. Some people swear by the OS command-line interface, some Oracle DBAs prefer to use tools like Enterprise Manager. In this lesson, we will briefly review Backup Manager.

• Backup Manager in relation to Oracle Enterprise Manager:
  Backup Manager is part of Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM), so OEM must be installed to run Backup Manager. OEM runs on a client machine running Windows NT. The examples shown in this lesson use OEM version 1.6, which is installed with Oracle version 8.0.5. When you start Backup Manager, it will create a connection to Recovery Manager running on the server where your production database resides. There is no real difference between backing up your database with Backup Manager and using the command-line interface.

CREATE USER jward
IDENTIFIED BY password
DEFAULT TABLESPACE data_ts
QUOTA 100M ON test_ts
QUOTA 500K ON data_ts
TEMPORARY TABLESPACE temp_ts
PROFILE clerk;
GRANT CREATE SESSION TO jward;

A newly created user cannot connect to the database until you grant the user the CREATE SESSION system privileges. So, immediately after you create the user account, use the GRANT SQL statement to grant the user these privileges. If the user must access Oracle Enterprise Manager, you should also grant the user the SELECT ANY DICTIONARY privilege.
As a security administrator, you should create your own roles and assign only those privileges that are needed. For example, many users formerly granted the CONNECT privilege did not need the additional privileges CONNECT used to provide. Instead, only CREATE SESSION was actually needed, and in fact, that is the only privilege CONNECT presently retains. Creating organization-specific roles gives an organization detailed control of the privileges it assigns, and protects it in case Oracle Database changes the roles that it defines in future releases.
Whether you elect to use Backup Manager or run Recovery Manager as a command-line utility is your preference. As we continue through the rest of this course, we will be using the command-line interface for examples.
In the next lesson, we will introduce backup sets and how they relate to RMAN.

RMAN enables you to back up, restore, and recover

1. data files,
2. control files,
3. server parameter files (SPFILEs)^[1] and
4. archived redo log files.

RMAN is included with Oracle Database and does not require separate installation. You can run RMAN from the command line or use RMAN in the Backup Manager in Oracle Enterprise Manager

Oracle Database provides RMAN for backing up and restoring the database. RMAN enables you to back up, restore, and recover data files, control files, SPFILEs, and archived redo logs. RMAN is included with the Oracle Database server and it is installed by default. You can run RMAN from the command line or you can use it from the Backup Manager in Oracle Enterprise Manager. In addition, RMAN is the recommended backup and recovery tool if you are using (Oracle ASM) Oracle Automatic Storage Management. The procedures for using RMAN in Oracle RAC environments do not differ substantially from those for Oracle noncluster environments.

[1] Server Parameter Files (SPFILEs): Server Parameter Files (SPFILEs) are binary files that store configuration settings for an Oracle database instance. They are crucial for managing and maintaining the database, as they contain parameters that control memory allocation, database performance, and other critical aspects of the instance.