rman and grid control - best practices and pros/cons

I am trying to bring some order to our backup strategy, which has been somewhat haphazard. We have a mix of 9.2 and 10.2 databases, and have just completed getting Grid Control set up with a repository, and all nodes registered to it.

Working from the assumption that it is preferable to keep the rman repository in a recovery catalog (as opposed to keeping it in the db control file) there is local discussion about whether or not the recovery catalog should be a separate db from the GC repository. Pros and cons to consider?

Also, it strikes me as "not a good idea" (tm) to use the recovery catalog (whether the same or separate from the GC repository) as a recovery catalog for itself. I'd think that, rather than set up another recovery catalog for the 'main' recovery catalog, this would be one db where one would simplify by using its control file for its rman repository. Again, pros and cons? Received on Tue Jun 20 2006 - 12:38:59 CDT