11G OCM Configure the data guard environment to reduce overheads of fast incremental backups on the primary database

References

Oracle® Database Backup and Recovery User's Guide 11g Release 1 (11.1)

• Chapter 8, "Backing Up the Database"
  • Making and Updating Incremental Backups
  • Using Block Change Tracking to Improve Incremental Backup Performance

Oracle® Data Guard Concepts and Administration 11g Release 1 (11.1)

• Chapter 11, "Using RMAN to Back Up and Restore Files"
  • Recommended RMAN and Oracle Database Configurations
    • RMAN Configurations at the Primary Database
    • RMAN Configurations at a Standby Database Where Backups are Performed

Oracle® Database High Availability Best Practices 11g Release 1 (11.1)

• Chapter 2, "Configuring for High Availability"
  • 2.7 Configuring Backup and Recovery
    • Offload Backups to a Physical Standby Database

Overview

The objective is:

Configure the data guard environment to reduce overheads of fast incremental backups on the primary database

Investigation

I had to find out what is meant by this objective.

Reading Notes

According to Making and Updating Incremental Backups,

• Faster daily backups if block change tracking is enabled (see "Using Block Change Tracking to Improve Incremental Backup Performance").
• …
• Synchronize a physical standby database with the primary database. You can use the RMAN BACKUP INCREMENTAL FROM SCN command to create a backup on the primary database that starts at the current SCN of the standby, which you can then use to roll forward the standby database. See Oracle Data Guard Concepts and Administration to learn how to apply incremental backups to a standby database.

Offload Backups to a Physical Standby Database says that:

In an Oracle Data Guard configuration, you can offload the process of backing up control files, data files, and archived redo log files to a physical standby database system, thereby minimizing the effect of performing backups on the primary system. These backups can be used to recover the primary or standby database. Note that backups of logical standby databases are not usable on the primary database.

Emphasis Mine

Conclusion

From the documentation, I can only assume that I run the incremental backups on the standby database.

Procedure

I am following the procedure in Recommended RMAN and Oracle Database Configurations.

FRA and SPFILE

Both the primary and standby have been configured with a Flashback Recovery Area and SPFILE.

RMAN Configuration on Primary

Following RMAN Configurations at the Primary Database, the following RMAN commands are run:

CONFIGURE ARCHIVELOG DELETION POLICY TO APPLIED ON ALL STANDBY; CONFIGURE DB_UNIQUE_NAME example_standby CONNECT IDENTIFIER 'example.standby.yaocm.id.au'; LIST DB_UNIQUE_NAME OF DATABASE;

This ensures that the archived redo log files are deleted on the primary after they have been applied to the standby. And the standby database is registered with RMAN.

RMAN Configuration on Standby

Following RMAN Configurations at a Standby Database Where Backups are Performed, the following RMAN commands are run:

CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP ON; CONFIGURE BACKUP OPTIMIZATION ON; CONFIGURE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE DISK FORMAT '/u01/app/oracle/backup/example/%U'; CONFIGURE ARCHIVELOG DELETION POLICY TO BACKED UP 1 TIMES TO DEVICE TYPE DISK;