About Backing Up Database Deployments on Exadata Cloud Service

About Automatic Database Backups

Exadata Cloud Service provides a backup feature that automatically backs up the Oracle database associated with a database deployment. This feature is built over Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) and exposed through a simple set of system utilities that are installed on your Exadata system. It also relies on Oracle Database Backup Cloud Service, which in turn uses an Oracle Storage Cloud Service container, when cloud storage is selected as a backup location.

When you create a database deployment on Exadata Cloud Service, you must choose from the following automatic backup configuration options:

Both Cloud Storage and Exadata Storage — enables two separate backup sets containing periodic full (RMAN level 0) backups and daily incremental backups. The backup to cloud storage uses an Oracle Storage Cloud container, with a seven day cycle between full backups and an overall retention period of 30 days. The backup to Exadata storage uses space in the RECO disk group, with a seven day cycle between full backups and a seven day retention period.

Note:
This option is only available if you provisioned for database backups on Exadata storage. See Exadata Storage Configuration.
Cloud Storage Only — uses an Oracle Storage Cloud container to store periodic full (RMAN level 0) backups and daily incremental backups, with a seven day cycle between full backups and an overall retention period of 30 days.

Note:
To eliminate possible confusion or contention, do not use a single cloud storage container as a backup destination for multiple database deployments.
None — no automatic backups are configured.

Default Automatic Database Backup Configuration

The default automatic backup configuration follows a set of Oracle best-practice guidelines:

Automatic backups are scheduled daily.
Backups consist of periodic full backups of the database, followed by daily incremental backups:
- For backups to Both Cloud Storage and Exadata Storage or Cloud Storage Only, the default interval between full backups is seven days.
The retention period defines the period for which backups are maintained, as follows:
- For backups to Both Cloud Storage and Exadata Storage, two separate backups are maintained with different retention periods. By default, the backup to Exadata storage has a seven day retention period and the backup to cloud storage has a thirty day retention period.
- For backups to Cloud Storage Only, the default retention period is thirty days.
After the initial retention period, for daily incremental backups to Both Cloud Storage and Exadata Storage or Cloud Storage Only, the oldest daily incremental backup is automatically merged into the oldest full backup.
The user data residing in backups is encrypted by default, regardless of the backup destination.
For database deployments where the Database Type is Database Clustering with RAC and Data Guard Standby, automatic backups are executed on the original primary site; that is, the Exadata system that was initially configured as the primary site, regardless of any role switches.

You can customize some aspects of the backup configuration for your database deployment. See Customizing the Automatic Backup Configuration.

On-Demand Database Backups

You can also create on-demand database backups that use the automatic backup configuration. These backups can be initiated at any time, using the Oracle Database Cloud Service console or the bkup_api utility. By default, on-demand backups are managed using the same retention policy as automatic backups.

Optionally, you can configure an on-demand backup as a long-term backup. If you use this option, the backup is not managed using the retention policy for automatic backups. Long-term backups remain until you explicitly remove them from the system.

In addition to complete database backups, you can use the bkup_api utility to perform an on-demand backup of an individual pluggable database (PDB).

Viewing Exadata Storage for Database Backups

If your Exadata Cloud Service environment is provisioned for database backups on Exadata storage, the backups are stored in the Fast Recovery Area (FRA), which resides in the RECO disk group.

You can confirm that the RECO disk group is used to store the FRA, and view the contents, by using command line tools on the Exadata compute nodes:

Connect to a compute node as the oracle user.

See Connecting to a Compute Node Through Secure Shell (SSH).
Configure your Oracle Database environment variable settings:
```
$ . oraenv
```
Confirm that the database is configured to use the RECO disk group to store the Fast Recovery Area:
```
$ sqlplus / as sysdba
SQL> show parameter DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST
```
Connect to the compute node as the opc user.

See Connecting to a Compute Node Through Secure Shell (SSH).
Become the grid user:
```
$ sudo -s
# su - grid
```
List the ASM disk groups:
```
$ asmcmd lsdg
```
List the contents of the FRA:
```
$ asmcmd ls FRA_LOCATION
```
where FRA_LOCATION is the location associated with the DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST database parameter setting.

Additional Database Backup Options

In addition to the Exadata Cloud Service automatic database backup capabilities, you can separately and manually perform Oracle Database backup and recovery operations by using Oracle RMAN or other Oracle Database backup and recovery tools and techniques.

Manually configured backups can use the same cloud storage or Exadata storage locations as the database backups provided by Exadata Cloud Service, or they may use other storage locations. If you create manual backups on local Exadata storage, it is recommended that you provision for database backups on Exadata storage in your Exadata Cloud Service instance. For more information, see Exadata Storage Configuration.

When implementing a manual backup and recovery scheme, you are responsible for considering all of the associated requirements, including network bandwidth, storage capacity and data security.