RMAN Enhancements

New Privilege

• A new SYSBACKUP privilege is created in Oracle 12c,  it allows the grantee to perform BACKUP and RECOVERY operations with RMAN

SQL in RMAN

• You can now use SQL Statements in RMAN like you would do in SQL*PLUS :
  • BEFORE : RMAN> SQL “alter system switch logfile”;
  • NOW : RMAN> alter system switch logfile;

Multisections Backups

• You can create multisection backupsets by using the SECTION SIZE keyword in the RMAN script:
  • RMAN> backup as copy section size 100M database;

Duplication Enhancements

• Duplication is possible for CDBs, a single PDB, multiple PDBs at the same time and standard databases.
• Active duplication can now use :
  • Multisections backupsets
    • SECTION SIZE
  • compression
    • USING COMPRESSED BACKUPSET
  • encryption
    • SET ENCRYPTION

    RMAN> SET ENCRYPTION ...;
    RMAN> DUPLICATE TARGET DATABASE TO NEW_DB
          [FROM ACTIVE DATABASE]
          [USING BACKUPSET]
          [SECTION SIZE]
          [USING COMPRESSED BACKUPSET]

• The active duplication now pulls the primary databases datafiles as backupsets, datafiles copies are no longer used.
• You can now use the NOOPEN keyword in your duplication command to prevent RMAN from opening the database (It stays in MOUNT mode).

Transportable Database/Tablespaces

• Transportable tablespaces and transportable database can now use backup sets instead of image copies
• Unlike image copies, backupset can be compressed, encrypted and use multisection.

Table recovery

• You can now use a table level point in time recovery.

New Flashback Data Archive Features

•  Flashback Data Archive let you easily get a full history of sensitive tables of you application.
• Flashback Data Archive is easy to set on designated tables with a single command.
• It lets you change all the sensitives tables of your application to read-only mode at the same time.
• It lets you collect the user identity metadata to find easily who alter the sensitive table.
• Flashback Data Archive is compatible with tables compressed with the Hybrid Columnar Compression
• You can import existing history collected with other methods such like triggers into the FDA tables.
• FDA data can take advantage of the Automatic Data Optimization option to optimize the storage space and performance of FDA queries.

See the documentation for examples and setup