Re: Incremental backups

Incremental backups, even in the absence of changed block tracking, can still be valuable in some cases. Your incremental backups may still take about the same amount of time, but the will consume less backup media and/or network bandwidth (assuming you're backing up across a network).

I have clients who make extensive use of incremental backups, even on Standard Edition. (Changed block tracking is an Enterprise Edition feature.) They find that the reduction in backup media and network traffic are more than sufficient motivation.

Given that we are taking "incremental", I presume we are also talking "RMAN". If you're using a decent media manager, the extra tape mounts needed for incremental backups should not be a major issue. On the other hand, incrementals can in some cases considerably improve recovery time. It is possible, for example, (under really extreme conditions, perhaps) for a 1GB incremental backup to "replace" several hundred GB of archive logs...

If, however, you have the "luxury" of performing regular level-0 (full) backups, and you are comfortable doing so, I can see no reason not to continue doing so.

On 12/6/06, Kline.Michael <Michael.Kline_at_suntrust.com> wrote:
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> Anyone have a sort of "working policy" at which point incremental
> backups are worth considering?
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> ...
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-- 
Cheers,
-- Mark Brinsmead
   Senior DBA,
   The Pythian Group
   http://www.pythian.com/blogs

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