About Tape Backup Infrastructure

Tape backup is an optional feature. You can choose between Oracle and third-party tape systems.

Oracle's Recovery Appliance supports the installation and configuration of Oracle tape systems. You can connect Recovery Appliance to the storage area network (SAN) in your data center for backups to an Oracle tape system.

Oracle Recommended Stack

Recovery Appliance is engineered to work with industry leading tape infrastructure components, including those described in Table 1-22.

Table 1-22 Oracle Tape System Components

Component	Models	Notes
Oracle Tape Libraries	SL150, SL3000, SL8500	ACSLS, ACSLS Logical Libraries, FC-SCSI
Oracle Tape Drives	T10000D, T10000C, LTO	All interfaces supported by the recommended Oracle libraries
Automated Cartridge System Library Software (ACSLS)	Automated Cartridge System Library Software (ACSLS) 8.x	API, Logical Libraries
Tape Encryption	Oracle Key Manager (OKM) 2.3	Recommended Key Management for enterprise key management. Operates seamlessly with Recovery Appliance

Recovery Appliance supports Oracle Secure Backup tape management software out of the box. It provides the following benefits:

Oracle Secure Backup is deployed and configured as part of the Recovery Appliance software installation.
Upgrades are included with Recovery Appliance software upgrades.
Tape backups automatically protect the Recovery Appliance metadata.
Oracle Secure Backup provides disaster recovery automation from tape.
Oracle Secure Backup copies data from its storage location directly to tape.
Oracle Secure Backup provides superior local tape performance by using only the InfiniBand and fiber channel networks. Tape backups do not impact your IP network.

Third-Party Tape Systems

Out of the box, Recovery Appliance supports the use of any third-party (non Oracle) media management software that is compatible with the Recovery Appliance.

Recovery Appliance allows the use of third-party media management software that offers RMAN-integrated backup module with its client software. Only the client software component of a third-party media management product for copy to tape operations may be installed on the Recovery Appliance compute servers.

Under the terms of the Recovery Appliance license, you may not install the media manager server component because only Oracle Secure Backup can back up Recovery Appliance to the tape devices directly (or via SAN) attached to the fibre channel interfaces of the compute nodes. Any non Oracle media manager software must be configured only as a network client.

Note the following:

Recovery Appliance software upgrades might not preserve the client software or its configuration.
Third-party media managers do not provide Recovery Appliance metadata protection support.
If you configure third-party media managers with Recovery Appliance, carefully validate your configuration to ensure that backups and restores work as expected.
Refer to My Oracle Support note 2014361.1 for restrictions and guidance on third party software installation.