Main Components of the Recovery Appliance Environment

Figure 2-1 shows an example of a typical Recovery Appliance environment, which contains the following components:

Multiple protected databases

Each protected database sends backups and real-time redo to the Recovery Appliance. Protected databases can run on different releases of Oracle Database. For example, a mixed environment might include protected databases from Oracle Database 10g, Oracle Database 11g, and Oracle Database 12c.
Recovery Appliance

Figure 2-1 shows a central Recovery Appliance, which receives incremental backups and real-time redo from the protected databases. The Recovery Appliance contains the Recovery Appliance metadata database. This database includes the following components:
- The RMAN recovery catalog, which is subdivided into multiple virtual recovery catalogs.
- One or more storage locations. Recovery Appliance storage contains the delta store, which includes multiple delta pools.
Figure 2-1 also shows the central Recovery Appliance replicating backups to a second Recovery Appliance, which in turn forwards these backups to a third Recovery Appliance.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control (Cloud Control)

Figure 2-1 shows Cloud Control running on a separate server in the environment. Administrators can use Cloud Control to manage all Recovery Appliances, protected databases, and tape devices in the Recovery Appliance environment.
DBMS_RA PL/SQL package

This is the command-line interface to Recovery Appliance. This package, which is stored in the Recovery Appliance metadata database, provides the underlying functionality for Cloud Control.
Oracle Secure Backup

Figure 2-1 shows the Recovery Appliance using Oracle Secure Backup to archive backups to a tape library. The diagram also shows a downstream Recovery Appliance archiving backups to a separate tape library.