Is an Intentional Incomplete Backup Recoverable?

Hi,

The largest tables by far in our database are a set of tables used for logging or auditing. All the logging tables and corresponding indexes associated with those tables are confined to 2 tablespaces. No other table or index data exists within these tablespaces.

Right now, I am periodically (monthly) taking a copy (backup) of this database which is our production system and re-loading the files onto our development server for testing. This is working fine. It just takes a long time (about 24 hours) to transfer the zipped images of the datafiles down to the dev server (we are puling them via ftp from a remote datacenter across the internet over a slow DSL connection). By my estimates the log tables are accounting for 35-40% of the entire db, so if I didn't need to download the datafiles of those two tablespaces it would download a lot quicker. I don't need that log/audit data on my dev system, so I'm wondering:

Can I do an INTENTIONAL partial backup (both cold and hot) of the database such that I do not backup these 2 tablespaces? And will I still be able to recover this database onto our dev system?

Thanks for any insight,
Gavin Received on Tue Jan 08 2002 - 20:26:07 CST