How to configure Automatic Managed Backup on ExaCS

Oracle Provides Automatic Managed Backup Service on ExaCS Machine. Oracle completely managed the Backup of the database on the customer’s behalf. It stores the backup in DBaaS tenancy, not the customer tenancy

Table of Contents

How to configure Automatic Managed Backup

Step 1
Open the navigation menu. Choose your Compartment.
Step 2
Under Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure, click Exadata VM Clusters. In the list of VM clusters, find the VM cluster you want to access and click its highlighted name to view the details page for the cluster.
Step 3
In the list of databases, find the database for which you want to enable or disable automatic backups, and click its name to display database details. The details indicate whether automatic backups are enabled.
Step 4
Click Configure Automatic Backups
Step 5
In the Configure Automatic Backups dialog, check or uncheck Enable Automatic Backup, as applicable. If you are enabling automatic backups, you can choose one of the following preset retention periods: 7 days, 15 days, 30 days, 45 days, or 60 days. The default selection is 30 days.
Backup Scheduling: If you enable automatic backups, you can choose a two-hour scheduling window to control when backup operations begin. If you do not specify a window, the six-hour default window of 00:00 to 06:00 (in the time zone of the DB system’s region) is used for your database.
Click Save Changes.

Characteristics of Automatic Backup

Automatic backups have the following characteristics:
Backup Location: These managed backups are stored in Cloud Object Storage under an internal bucket ( Users do not have direct access to the backup bucket under object storage service)
Backup List: The list of backups you see in the Console does not include any manual unmanaged backups (backups created directly by using RMAN or bkup_api).
Backup Encryption: All backups are encrypted with the same master key used for Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) wallet encryption.
Backup Retention: 7, 15, 30, 45, or 60 days. It can be changed afterwards.
Object Storage Costs – Automatic backups incur Object Storage usage costs.
Delete Backups: When you terminate a DB system or a database, all of its resources are deleted, along with any automatic backups. Full backups remain in Object Storage as standalone backups. You can use a standalone backup to create a new database.
In-Place Restore: Yes
Create Database from Backup: Yes.
Replication across Regions: No. Data is not replicated in another Region.
Restore across ADs: Yes.
Restore across Regions: No from the console. But it can be done manually
The database and DB system must be in an “Available” state for a backup operation to run successfully. Oracle recommends that you avoid performing actions that could interfere with availability (such as patching operations) while a backup operation is in progress. If an automatic backup operation fails, the Database service retries the operation during the next day’s backup window. If an on-demand full backup fails, you can try the operation again when the DB system and database availability are restored.

Backup Schedule

When you enable Automatic Backup, the following things are scheduled

Weekly Level 0 backup, created on a specified weekend day.
Daily level 1 backups, which are incremental backups created every day following the level 0 backup day.

Archived redo log backups (with a minimum frequency of every 30 minutes)
Full backup of selected system configuration files.

How to check Backup Configuration

You can determine the backup configuration in detail from the below command

dbaascli database backup --getConfig --dbName <value> --configFile <value>
Example
dbaascli database backup --getConfig --dbName TEST --configFile /tmp/config.txt

How to get the list of Backup with status

You can check the status of the L0 and L1 backup from the console but more details can be obtained from the DB server also using the below command

dbaascli database backup --dbName <dbname> --showHistory --all
Example
dbaascli database backup --dbName TEST --showHistory --all

Here
create-backup-full -> Level0 Backup
create-backup-incremental -> Level 1 Backup
archivelog-backup -> archivelog backup

How to Customize the Backup Configuration

(a) Get the current Config

# dbaascli database backup --getConfig --dbName --configFile

Returns the Backup configuration of the database in a file specified by the user.

(b) Edit the parameter values in the generated file to change any settings you want to customize in the backup configuration.

# dbaascli database backup --configure --dbName --configFile

where filename is used to specify the name of the file that contains the updated backup settings and dbname is the database name for the database that you are acting on.

(d) You can use the below command to check the status of the configuration update:

# dbaascli database backup --status --uuid --dbname

Conclusion

By following these steps, you can set up a robust and automated backup system for your Oracle Exadata Cloud Service databases, leveraging the power of cloud storage for enhanced data protection and disaster recovery.

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