I am making backup scenario for Oracle 9i database which is avaliable 24x7. I created two scripts for backup
database files and archive log files.

connect target user/passwd
run {
allocate channel db_backup_disk1 type disk format '/oraback/dbarch/%U';
backup as BACKUPSET tag DB_BCK database;
release channel db_backup_disk1;
}

and

connect target user/passwd
run {
allocate channel arh_backup_disk1 type disk format '/opt/oracle/oraback/logarch/%U';
backup as BACKUPSET tag ARH_BCK archivelog all not backed up 2 times;
delete noprompt archivelog until time 'sysdate -7' backed up 2 times to device type disk;
release channel arch_backup_disk1;
}

I put this script in command files and call them from cron.

Requests for backup isne backup Weekly, monthly, and one in six months have to be saved separately and tree last made backups also.

Questions are:
1. How to delete old backup files and archived log files (using unix script or some other way?)
2. Is incremental backup better solution for this scenario?
3. How to test backup files for restoring (making test server or some other way?)
4. Is there any possibility to save information about finish backups and make report about that

Uh I know that is to many questions but it is urgent and very important for me.