Originally posted by omegamark

Rman does not copy the whole datafile .It copy's the datafile block by block and the empty blocks are not copied .
This depends on the type of backup you do. A full database backup would copy the entire datafile, including the empty blocks.

Level 0 would discard the empty blocks and only copy the used ones...


Originally posted by omegamark

RMAN is not that easy to setup ..RMAN setting up to disk is child's play .But as a DBA you need to configure with the media manager and backup the databases to the tape .While relinking the oracle executables one should know as much as the OS administartion also ....
This is true to an extent only. i.e. it depends on the storage manager that you choose. Some storage mager clients gets relinked to the library libobk.* when you start the database instance, dynamically. Some would require a manual relink.
Once you pass this phase rest are all mostly straight forward.


Originally posted by Raminder

Wonder what happens if the Recovery Catalog is lost along with Production database!

http://www.dbasupport.com/forums/sho...threadid=16051

Was'nt this guy better off without Rman? He would have had some cold backup at least.
As Jeff mentioned, he seems to have had both the production and catalog on the same server. It is always advised to have production and catalog in two different systems. Since I don't personally prefer to have an instance just dedicated for the backup, what I do is create catalog on two of my production instance and then do a cris-cross backup. That way, I'ld be loosing my backup only if my both the servers were to go down. I also would take a monthly level 0 on the OS level dump to the tape. That way you are better off.



[Edited by sambavan on 09-25-2001 at 11:53 AM]