Backup and Restore Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure

To support high availability, Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure automatically backs up your database for you. The retention period for backups is up to 95 days based on the Backup Retention Policy chosen for the Autonomous Container Database (ACD). You can restore and recover your database to any point-in-time in this retention period.

Autonomous Database supports both automatic and manual backups. It even lets you create long-term backups that are retained beyond the backup retention policy defined at an ACD level. While backing up a database, the database is fully functional; however, during the backup, life cycle management operations are not allowed. For example, stopping the database is not allowed during the backup. Terminating an Autonomous Database deletes all of its automatic and manual backups, including long-term backups.

About Backup and Recovery

Supported Backup Types

  • Automatic Backups: By default, Autonomous Database is configured to back up your database periodically. You can disable automatic backups while provisioning an ACD and enable them from the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) console anytime later. Once the automatic backups are enabled you can not disable them for an ACD.

    Autonomous Databases on Oracle Public Cloud are always backed up to Object Storage with daily incremental backups and weekly full backups. Autonomous Databases deployed on Exadata Cloud@Customer can be backed up to different backup destinations as discussed further in this article.

    Note:

    You can not disable automatic backups while provisioning an ACD with Autonomous Data Guard.
  • Manual Backups:

    • In addition to the backups created by Autonomous Database automatically, you can also create on-demand manual backups from the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) console; for example if you want to take a backup before a major change to make restore and recovery faster. These backups are retained up to 95 days depending on the backup retention policy (period) chosen for the ACD. Manual backups are cumulative incremental backups containing all the incremental backups from the last full backup.

    • Apart from the regular on-demand backups, you can also create long-term backups for an Autonomous Database from its details page on the OCI console. Long-term backups are retained beyond the backup retention policy (period) defined at the ACD level. While creating a long-term backup, you can specify its retention period anywhere from 90 days to 10 years.

      Note:

      Long-term backups cannot be used for Autonomous Database in-place restore operations. They are exclusively intended for cloning into new Autonomous Databases.

Backup Retention Policy (Period)

You can define the backup retention policy/period while provisioning an ACD or modify it later from its details page on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console.

On Oracle Public Cloud deployments, the backup retention policy value defaults to 15 days and can be changed to any value between 7 to 95 days.

On Exadata Cloud@Customer deployments:
  • You can not modify the backup retention policy if you use Recovery Appliance or Local Storage as your ACD’s backup destination. In the case of Recovery Appliance, this value is controlled by the Recovery Appliance protection policy.
  • For Object Storage and Network File System (NFS) backup destination types, the backup retention policy defaults to 30 days and can be changed to any value between 7 to 95 days.

Backup Destination

APPLIES TO: Applicable Exadata Cloud@Customer only

While provisioning an ACD or while enabling automatic backups on an already created ACD, you can configure the backup destination for backups of Autonomous Databases created in it. As of the current release, the backup destination type can only be set while enabling automatic backups on an ACD and can not be changed later. Below listed are the different backup destination options for Autonomous Database on Exadata Cloud@Customer:
    • Object Storage: Stores weekly full and daily incremental backups in an Oracle-managed object storage container on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. If you choose Object Storage as the type, you can optionally specify an internet HTTP proxy to use when connecting to the storage container. Oracle recommends using a proxy when possible for enhanced security.
    • Network File System (NFS): Stores weekly full and daily incremental backups in a Network File System (NFS) storage location. To learn more about configuring NFS backup destination for Cloud@Customer, see Prerequisites for Backup Destinations for Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer. If you choose Network File System (NFS) as the type, select a previously defined backup destination that uses Network File System (NFS) storage.
    • Recovery Appliance: Stores backups in one of your previously defined backup destinations that uses Oracle Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance. If you choose Recovery Appliance as the type, select a previously defined backup destination that uses Oracle Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance, the DB_UNIQUE_NAME of the ACD, and the VPC user name password.

      Note:

      Please ensure to provide the connection string that connects to the recovery appliance in an Oracle "easy connect" string format, that is, <host>:<port>/<service name>, where <host> is the SCAN hostname of the Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance.

Restore and Recover

You can either restore the database from a specific backup or use a timestamp for point-in-time recovery from the OCI console. The database goes into the unavailable state while restore is in progress. You cannot connect to the database in this state. The only life cycle management operation supported in unavailable state is terminate. When the restore operation finishes, your database is opened in the same state as before restoration.

When your database is restored, the value of the ADMIN user password is also restored. Therefore, it may have an old value that you no longer remember. You can set the password to a new value as described in Unlock or Change the ADMIN Database User Password.

After restoring your database, all backups between the date the restore completes and the date you specified for the restore operation - the restore time - are invalidated. You cannot initiate further restore operations to any point in time between the restore time and restore completion time. You can only initiate new restore operations to a point in time older than the restore time or more recent than the time when the actual restore succeeded.

In an Autonomous Data Guard setup:

  • You can only restore a backup from the primary database.
  • Database restore is not allowed if the standby database is in snapshot standby role. You must convert the standby Autonomous Container Database (ACD) to physical standby role to restore this database. See Convert Snapshot Standby to Physical Standby for instructions.

Backup and Restore Operations

The following table lists the operations that you can perform on backups of Autonomous Database.
Operation Details Further Reference
Create a manual backup You can create a manual (on-demand) backup from the Details page of an ACD on the OCI console. Backup Your Autonomous Database Manually
Create a long-term backup You can create a long-term backup from the Details page of an ACD on the OCI console. Create a Long-Term Backup
Clone from a backup

You can create a point-in-time copy of a backup set of your Autonomous Database.

You can clone from an automatic backup, manual backup (chosen from the list of backups or based on a timestamp), or a long-term backup.

For complete details about cloning from a backup, its requirements and limitations, refer to About Cloning Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure

For instructions on cloning a manual or long-term backup from the OCI console, see Clone Autonomous Database from Backup.

Edit backup settings You can enable automatic backups (if disabled while provisioning the ACD) and modify the following backup settings from the Details page of an ACD from the OCI console:
  • Backup retention period to any value between 7 to 95 days.
  • Backup destination type (applies to Exadata Cloud@Customer only.
  • HTTP Proxy. This is applicable only when Object Storage is selected as the backup destination for Exadata Cloud@Customer deployments.
For complete details about editing the backup settings, see Edit Autonomous Container Database Backup Settings.
Update a long-term backup You can edit the retention period of a long-term backup or even delete a long-term backup from the Details page of an ACD on the OCI console. Manage Long-Term Backups
Restore and recover your Autonomous Database You can either restore the database from a specific backup or use a timestamp for point-in-time recovery from the Details page of the ACD on the OCI console. Restore and Recover Your Autonomous Database

Backup and Restore Events

Oracle Database resources emit events, which are structured messages that indicate changes in resources. There are multiple events associated with database backup operations. You can find them in Events for Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure