Backup and Restore Notes

Provides notes for automatic backups, long-term backups, and restoring your database.

• Files on Object Store: For external tables, partitioned external tables, and the external partitions of hybrid partitioned tables, backups do not include the external files that reside on Object Store. Thus, for operations where you use a backup to restore your database, such as Restore or Clone from a backup, it is your responsibility to backup and restore if necessary, the external files associated with external tables, external partitioned tables, or the external files for a hybrid partitioned table.

  See Restore and Recover your Autonomous Database for information on Restore.

  See Clone an Autonomous Database from a Backup for information on Clone from a backup.

• Stopped Database: Automatic backups occur when a database is stopped. If you stop your database, you do not miss a regularly scheduled automatic backup.

• Manual Backups: The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console does not provide the option to create a manual backup. Oracle recommends that you do not create or use manual backups. If required, manual backups are available using the API. See CreateAutonomousDatabaseBackup for more information.

Long-Term Backup Notes

• Long-term backups are retained and managed by Oracle for the specified retention period you select when you create or schedule long-term backups.

• Each long-term backup creates a full backup and the backup can only be used from the Autonomous Database instance to clone a new database.

• After the long-term retention period is over a backup will be deleted and is no longer retained.

• The encryption key option that is selected when a long-term backup is created applies when you create a clone from the long-term backup. If a customer-managed master encryption key is in use at the time a long-term backup is created, then the same customer-managed master encryption key must be available to access a database that you clone from the long-term backup.

  See Manage Encryption Keys on Autonomous Database for more information.

• While backing up a database, the database is fully functional. However, during a long-term backup certain lifecycle management operations, such as stopping the database may affect the backup. See Long-Term Backup with Concurrent Operations for more information.

• Cloning from a long-term backup creates a new database with the most current available database version, which is possibly not the original database version in use at the time when the long-term backup was created. A database cloned from a long-term backup uses latest available database version.

  For example, if a long-term backup is taken on a database with version 19c, and then 4 years later the long-term backup is used to clone a new database, the new database may only offer the latest database version (for example Oracle Database 23ai, if version 19c is not available).

• Long-term backups are only accessible while a database exists. If you terminate an Autonomous Database instance, you no longer have access to long-term backups. If you want to retain long-term backups and minimize costs:

  1. Drop all tables and scale down the database to the minimum storage.
  2. Stop the database.

  This preserves the long-term backups that were created for the Autonomous Database instance.