Data Retention Rules for Oracle Backups

Retention Rules for Regular Full Backups

Oracle full backups follow the basic and extended retention rules. For more information, see Data Retention Rules.

If you have a backup cycle that includes full, incremental and log backups, the full backups and the associated log backups are pinned, but the incremental backups are not pinned. If you want to retain the incremental backups, you must manually select the backup job and retain it. For information, see Manage Retention of Individual Jobs.

When you install Commvault Version 11, all consistent and self-contained full backups are automatically eligible for selective copy and extended retention rules. You can change this option by modifying the Honor Extended Retention and Selective Copy rules for Oracle/RAC/SAP regular Full Jobs Media Management parameter.

When you upgrade to Commvault Version 11, you must set the Honor Extended Retention and Selective Copy rules for Oracle/RAC/SAP regular Full Jobs Media Management parameter to 1 to have all consistent and self-contained full backups to be automatically eligible for selective copy and extended retention rules.

Oracle and Oracle RAC custom script full backup jobs are also eligible for selective copy and extended retention rules when the Honor Extended Retention Rules for Oracle/RAC/SAP regular Full Jobs Media Management parameter is set to 1. For custom script jobs to be considered as eligible for extended retention, you must also configure them with an archive log phase. For example, select the archive log backup option in the schedule policy task, and then refresh the custom script to include this addition, under the Logs sub-tab of the Custom RMAN Script tab. This additional requirement ensures that selective online full jobs on extended retention are recoverable, without the need for other jobs to also be retained.

Regular Oracle and Oracle RAC command line full jobs are not eligible for selective copy and extended retention.

For information about configuring the Media Management parameter, see Media Management Configuration.

You can run a script after you run a selective online full or incremental backup to enable the full cycle retention of selective jobs on the selective copy. For more information, see Enabling Extended Retention of a Full Cycle Job on the Selective Copy.

You can copy a full cycle of jobs to a selective copy. The cycle includes the selective online full and incremental jobs. For additional information, see Copying a Full Cycle of Jobs to a Selective Copy.

Retention Rules for Oracle Archive Redo Log Backups

Log Backups (archived redo) are not considered part of the backup cycle. Therefore, the storage policy cycle retention parameters do not apply to them. However, log backups can be linked to data backup operations, which can affect their retention as follows:

When a log backup runs at the same time as a full backup, they are linked even when the full backup includes the data and the logs. If a full backup job includes just the data then the next log backup job is linked to this full backup job.

These are considered as linked or chained log backups and are not aged until the linked data is aged. In addition, these log backups follow the unique data aging rules for log backups.
If a full backup job includes the data and the logs, then the next log backup is not linked to this full backup job. The following data aging rules are applied to these unlinked log backup jobs:
- The log backups that are not copied to secondary copies are not aged on both the primary and non-primary source copy.
- Log backups that exist only on one copy are aged when all the data backups that are older than the log backups are aged.
- If the log backups exist on multiple copies, the copy with the longest retention days is retained until all the older data backups are aged. The log backup jobs on the remaining copies are aged by using the copy retention days.

You can configure the software to retain the logs using the currently associated storage policy copies. For information on the Honor cycle only retention for log rule parameter, see Media Management Configuration: Data Aging.

Retention Rules for Selective Online Full and Incremental Backups

A selective online full or incremental operation includes archive logs and Oracle data. Any log job you start within the time frame of the operation is linked to the selective online full or incremental job. The software treats the logs and the selective online full or incremental job as one entity. They are copied to synchronous and selective copies together during the auxiliary copy operations and are aged together. If any part of the selective online full is missing from a copy, the full backup is not considered as a valid full and is not counted as a cycle during data aging. Consider the following:

Selective online full backups and all logs linked with it must be retained together on the same storage policy copy.
The logs that are linked with a selective online full (and the logs of the selective online full) can be aged only if they are older than the oldest data that can be aged and the corresponding data of the selective online full that can be or have been aged.
Selective online full backup jobs that are completed with errors are not retained by extended retention rules during the data aging operation.

You can configure the software to allow selective online incremental backups to be eligible for selective copy. For more information, see Allowing Incremental Jobs to Be Eligible for Selective Copy.

Retention Rules for Offline Full and Incremental Backups

You can configure the software to allow offline backups to be eligible for selective copy. For more information, see Allowing Incremental Jobs to Be Eligible for Selective Copy.

You can copy a full cycle of jobs to a selective copy. The cycle includes the offline full and incremental jobs. For additional information, see Copying a Full Cycle of Jobs to a Selective Copy.

Retention Rules for Manual Retention Jobs

The following rules apply to a backup cycle that contains full, log and incremental backups.

Full backups and the associated log backups are aged together, but the incremental backups are not.

If you manually change the retention for a full backup, the associated log backups are automatically included and retained. If you want to keep an incremental job in a cycle that you manually changed, you must manually select each incremental backup job that you want to keep and retain it. For information, see see Manage Retention of Individual Jobs.

Retention Rules for Oracle Regular Full Backups on Selective Copies

Regular Oracle and Oracle RAC command line full jobs are not eligible for selective copy and extended retention.

For information about configuring the Media Management parameter, see Media Management Configuration.

Retention Rules for Command Line Backups

The third party command line log backups can be linked to third party command line data backups as well as any other kind of backup data as per regular data link rule.
Data from third-party command line backups ages differently than data from backups initiated through the CommCell Console. Retention cycles are not used for copies involved in operations from the third-party command line. For such operations, data is aged according to the associated retention time. You can manually set the retention time for each third party command line job from the storage policy copy. The command line log backups are aged according to the retention time set for its associated command line data backup job.
Command line full jobs are aged only when all of the incremental data backups in that cycle are eligible for pruning.
Command line backup are not eligible for extended retention.

Partial Backup Pruning Warning

Be aware of the following for command line jobs.

If the last full backup includes a partial database, then data in a previous full backup might be lost.

Example

A backup is performed every day, providing 5 backups spread over 5 days.

Backup 1: This is a full backup of the entire database.

Backup 2: This is a full backup of the partial database.

Backup 3: This is an incremental data backup.

Backup 4: This is an incremental data backup.

Backup 5: This is a log only backup.

If the storage policy retention is 3 days, this makes Backup 1 and Backup 2 eligible for pruning. Backup 2 is retained because incremental jobs Backup 3 and Backup 4 are not eligible for pruning. Backup 1, which contains the entire database, is pruned and thus the entire database backup is lost.

Retention Rules for On-Demand Backups

Data Aging for Oracle On-Demand backup jobs uses days and time, and ignores the cycles for pruning the data.

When you perform an On-Demand full backup job (that includes data and logs), the next log backup job will get linked to this job, because the job type for a full backup is data for both the data and the log phase.

Use the following guidelines for assigning storage policies:

Do not use the same storage policy for regular Oracle backups.
The storage policy copy that contains the logs for Oracle On-Demand must have a longer retention time than other storage policies used by regular Oracle backups for the same instance. This prevents the logs of Oracle On-Demand backups from being pruned before the data of regular Oracle backups and allows the database to be fully restored and recovered using the data of old regular Oracle backups and logs.

Oracle selective online full and offline full jobs performed by using the On-Demand configuration are not copied to selective copy and are not eligible for extended retention.

Retention Rules for Customized RMAN Scripts

Customized RMAN jobs that are full data backups are eligible for cycle and extended retention, and are also eligible for selective copy. Customized RMAN jobs that are not full data backups use the day and time for pruning and therefore are not eligible for extended retention and selective copy.

For RMAN streaming selective online full jobs to be considered for extended retention, both the data and log files must be backed up. If you use a customized script to run the backup you must make sure that the RMAN script includes commands to back up the log files.

An effective storage policy strategy for customized RMAN Script backups is as follows:

Do not use the same storage policy for regular Oracle backups and customized RMAN Script backups.
The storage policy copy that contains the logs for customized RMAN Script backups must have a longer retention time than other storage policies used by regular Oracle backups for the same instance. This prevents the logs from being pruned before the data of regular Oracle backups and allows the database to be fully restored and recovered using the data of old regular Oracle backups and logs.

Retention Rules for Backups That Use the Tape Library

By default, the Commvault software ages an Oracle backup piece as expired when the tape that the backup resides on is deleted or overwritten.

If you want to have the backup pieces marked as expired even when the tape exists and has not been overwritten, then set the Mark Oracle Backup piece as expired for aged archive files Media Management configuration parameter to 1. For more information, see Media Management Configuration: Data Aging.

Data Aging Rules for Jobs Completed with Errors

Note

Oracle jobs that complete with errors are not eligible for extended retention rules.

Cycle retention is not honored on jobs that complete with errors. The job gets pruned after the configured storage policy retention (the Basic Retention Rule for All Backups on the Retention tab of the Storage Policy Properties dialog) expires.

From the CommCell Console ribbon, click the Home tab, and then click Control Panel.
Under the Storage section, click the Media Management icon.
On the Data Aging tab of the Media Management Configuration dialog box, change the value for the Ignore Completed With Errors job option for Extended Retention calculations option from 1 to 0.
Click OK to close the Media Management Configuration dialog box.

Commvault Command Line Interface Data Aging

The qoperation agedata command can age data and logs simultaneously based on the Job ID, and it is especially useful for aging each of these items separately.

Data Aging Rules for Oracle Instances

You can disable data aging for an instance.

Use this feature when you have a storage policy that covers multiple instances and you need to retain the data for a specific instance. For example, if a database administrator has one storage policy for all databases, and they need to retain data for one instance, then they can disable data aging for the instance.

When you disable data aging, the Commvault software does not prune the data or run the RMAN crosscheck. The data remains on tye storage device until one of the following actions occurs: