Benefits of Using Recovery Appliance to Back Up Protected Databases

• Minimizes the impact of backups on production servers

  • Minimizes backup windows

    Recovery Appliance simplifies data protection for databases across the enterprise by reducing backup windows and providing a single repository for backups of multiple protected databases. Recovery Appliance uses an incremental-forever backup strategy in which only one level 0 backup is required for each protected database. Subsequently, protected databases send level 1 incremental backups to the Recovery Appliance.

  • Offloads backup processing from production servers

    Most backup processing, including backup validation and backup maintenance operations are offloaded to the Recovery Appliance. Performance of production systems is improved because resources uses for backup processing are freed up.

• Eliminates data loss

  • Transports redo data asynchronously to Recovery Appliance

    Real-time redo transport enables protected databases to recover data to within a few subseconds of a database failure. It minimizes the window of potential data loss that exists between successive incremental archived log backups by writing redo data directly, as it is generated, from the protected database memory to the Recovery Appliance. See Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance Administrator’s Guide for information about the Oracle AI Database releases that support real-time redo transport.

  • Protects against data corruption

    Backups created to Recovery Appliance are continuously validated to ensure that database backup integrity is maintained. With Oracle RMAN block checks, Automatic Storage Management (ASM) and Exadata data checks, Recovery Appliance provides the best protection for Oracle databases far exceeding third-party solutions that rely mostly on hardware checksums.

• Integration with Oracle high availability technologies

  Recovery Appliance is integrated with Oracle high availability technologies including Recovery Manager (RMAN), Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC), Oracle Data Guard, and Oracle Secure Backup. You can use RMAN commands, with the exceptions noted in Unsupported RMAN Commands, to back up and recover protected databases.

  Note:

  Oracle Secure Backup (OSB) 19.1 desupport was announced on May 1, 2026 with premier support end date on September 30, 2027. See My Oracle Support note PNEWS3035 for more information. Please refer to Lifetime Support Policy: Oracle Technology Products for updated support timeframes.

  Oracle recommends that database backups to cloud take advantage of Oracle Database Zero Data Loss Cloud Protect, which uses Oracle Zero Data Loss Autonomous Recovery Service in OCI. Cloud Protect offers an efficient incremental forever backup strategy, real-time transaction protection, logically air-gapped immutable backups, and fast, point-in-time recovery.

  For customers who require database backups to Amazon S3, Oracle Database Cloud Backup for Amazon S3 may be used. This offering is similar to Oracle Secure Backup Cloud Module in that it is fully integrated with Recovery Manager (RMAN) and enables you to back up your Oracle database to Amazon S3. You can exchange your Oracle Secure Backup license for an Oracle Database Cloud Backup for Amazon S3 license on a 1:1 basis. See Oracle Database Cloud Backup for Amazon S3 for more information.

  As with Oracle Secure Backup Cloud Module, Oracle Database Cloud Backup for Amazon S3 can be used free of charge on Oracle Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance (ZDLRA) for the sole purpose of backing up data to and restoring data from S3-compatible storage devices that are in the same campus as ZDLRA.

• Reduced restore and recovery time

  Recovery Appliance uses virtual full backups that are created on-demand to reduce the restore and recovery time. A virtual full backup is a complete database image as of a distinct point in time. Recovery Appliance efficiently maintains virtual full backups by indexing the incremental backups from protected databases.

• Optimizes storage requirements

  Backup storage no longer needs to be distributed across all the protected databases. Recovery Appliance uses a shared disk backup pool to store backups for multiple protected databases.

  Despite moving your backups to Recovery Appliance, you still need to configure a local fast recovery area on the protected databases to store control files, online redo log files, archived redo logs, and flashback logs. However, this fast recovery area can be considerably smaller because it does not need to store backups.