Use the RMAN BACKUP command to back up protected databases to Recovery Appliance. When you back up a protected database to the Recovery Appliance for the first time, you must seed the repository by creating an initial level 0 backup of the entire database. A level 0 incremental backup must also be created when point-in-time recovery is performed on the protected database to a time before the oldest backup that exists on the Recovery Appliance.

After the first level 0 backup, your regular backup schedule will consist of creating periodic level 1 cumulative incremental backups of the protected database, the spfile, control files, and archived redo log files. Since archived logs hold records of all changes that occur in the database, these critical files must be backed up more frequently than data files. Frequent archived redo log backups reduce the potential data loss that is incurred, if the protected database is lost and backups need to be recovered.

You can either back up directly to the Recovery Appliance or first create backup sets in a local fast recovery area or disk directory and then copy them to the Recovery Appliance using the BACKUP BACKUPSET command.

A good backup strategy must ensure that backups created can actually be restored and used successfully. Because Recovery Appliance validates incoming backups for Oracle block correctness before storing them, you need not include a RESTORE VALIDATE command in your periodic full restore and recovery testing. Even virtual backups are periodically validated in-place by a background task running on the Recovery Appliance.