Using the Agent in RMAN Mode › Create an RMAN Catalog

Create an RMAN Catalog

Recovery Manager (RMAN) is an Oracle utility that you can use to backup, restore, and recover database files. RMAN performs important backup and recovery procedures, and greatly simplifies the task that administrators perform during these procedures.

Using RMAN and CA ARCserve Backup, you specify your own RMAN scripts to perform backups. You can also use RMAN directly to back up any online database object by connecting directly to RMAN with or without a recovery catalog at the command line.

Note: When using the agent or RMAN to back up, we recommend that you use a recovery catalog installed in a separate database. After backing up an Oracle database using RMAN, you can restore the database using either the agent or RMAN. Similarly, if you back up an Oracle database using the Agent for Oracle, you can restore the database using either RMAN or the agent.

For more information about the Recovery Manager, see the Oracle documentation.

You can use the RMAN catalog when performing a backup as RMAN stores all relative backup information in this catalog. Without the catalog, RMAN will rely only on control files to manage backups. This is very risky because if all the control files are lost, RMAN will not be able to restore the database. In addition, you will not be able to restore your control files and your database will be lost.

Note: Ensure that the Catalog Database is available while performing backup and restore jobs using RMAN catalog.

To create an RMAN catalog

Note: Because RMAN relies heavily on this catalog when restoring, you should create it in a separate database (that is, a database other than the one being backed up).

1. Create a new tablespace using this SQL*Plus command:

   *  create tablespace <RMAN catalog tablespace> datafile <datafile name> size <datafile size> m;
   

2. Create the user who will be the owner of the RMAN catalog by entering this command:

   * create user <RMAN catalog owner> identified by <password> default tablespace <RMAN catalog tablespace> quota unlimited on <RMAN catalog tablespace>;
   

3. Assign the correct privileges to this user by using the following command:

   * grant recovery_catalog_owner to <RMAN catalog owner>;
   

4. Open a new command prompt and run the following command to connect to the catalog database of RMAN:

   rman catalog <RMAN catalog owner>/<RMAN catalog password>@rmandb
   

   where rmandb is the TNS Name for the RMAN catalog database.

5. Create a catalog using this command:

   create catalog;
   

6. Connect to the catalog database and target database of RMAN.

   *rman target <user(sys) who has sysdba privilege>/< password for user(sys)>@targetdb catalog <RMAN catalog owner>/<RMAN catalog password>@rmandb
   

   where rmandb is the TNS Name for the RMAN catalog Database and the targetdb is the TNS Name for the Target Database.

7. Execute the following command.

   register database;
   

For more information about Recovery Manager, see the Oracle Documentation.

Important! If you are not using an RMAN catalog, you need to manage your control files on your own either by using a file system backup or by mirroring the control files for fault tolerance.