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Roll Forward Physical Standby Using RMAN Incremental Backup in Single Command (Doc ID 2431311.1)

Last updated on JULY 20, 2024

Applies to:

Oracle Database Cloud Schema Service - Version N/A and later
Oracle Database Cloud Exadata Service - Version N/A and later
Oracle Database Cloud Service - Version N/A and later
Gen 1 Exadata Cloud at Customer (Oracle Exadata Database Cloud Machine) - Version N/A and later
Oracle Database Exadata Express Cloud Service - Version N/A and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Goal

NOTE: In the images and/or the document content below, the user information and environment data used represents fictitious data from the
Oracle sample schema(s), Public Documentation delivered with an Oracle database product or other training material.  Any similarity to actual
environments, actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended in any manner.

For the purposes of this document, the following fictitious environment is used as an example to describe the procedure:

Standby Name: SBY180
Primary Name:  PRM180
Directory Name:  /u01/app/oracle and all sub-directories

 

Note, this procedure is version dependent.  The procedure described in this note is for Oracle 18c and higher. 

For 11g see the following procedure:
11g Steps to perform for Rolling Forward a Physical Standby Database using RMAN Incremental Backup. (Doc ID 836986.1)

For 12.1 and 12.2, see the following procedure:
12c How to Roll Forward a Standby Database Using Recover Database From Service (Doc ID 2850185.1) 

 Typically, when rolling forward a physical standby database using primary incremental backup, multiple steps are required:

  1. Identify the Start SCN on Standby for performing incremental backup on primary
  2. Perform incremental backup on primary with FROM SCN clause
  3. Move the backup-pieces from primary to standby
  4. Catalog the backup-piece on Standby
  5. Perform recovery on standby using recover database noredo
  6. Refresh standby controlfile again from primary

Starting from 12.1, we could use "RECOVER DATABASE FROM SERVICE"command which will automate a few steps like performing incremental backup on primary, transfer the backup-pieces to standby over network and perform recovery on standby. However, we still had to manually refresh the standby controlfile and manually restore newly-added datafiles. These steps required manual efforts and are error prone especially when standby files are physically located in a path different to that of primary.

Starting with 18.1, we can use a single command to refresh the standby with changes made on primary:

RMAN> RECOVER STANDBY DATABASE FROM SERVICE primary_connect_identifier;

This command will internally keep track of standby file locations, refresh standby controlfile from primary, update the new standby controlfile with standby file names, perform incremental backup on primary, transfer the backup-pieces over network to standby and perform recovery on standby

Solution

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In this Document
Goal
Solution
References

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