Tip of the Day - Oracle & PostgreSQL (Mon, 30 Mar 2026)

Oracle RMAN Backup Retention Policy

RMAN backup retention policies define how long Oracle Database backups are kept, allowing RMAN to identify "obsolete" files which are no longer needed for recovery. 
Retention Policy is set using either REDUNDANCY (number of copies), RECOVERY WINDOW (time-based).

Retention Policy Types: 

• REDUNDANCY (Default): Retains a specified number of backups for each datafile/control file. 

Example: The following command sets the retentinon policy to Redundancy of 2, which ensures that at least 2 backups exist. Any backup older than the recent 2 backups are marked obsolete.

  

Command: CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY TO REDUNDANCY 2;

• RECOVERY WINDOW: Retains all backups required to recover the database to any point in time within the specified number of days.

Example: Following commands sets the retention policy to a recovery window of 7, which means Oracle RMAN will kepp all backups which are required to recover the database back to any point in time for last 7 days. Any backup older than that will be marked obsolete.

   

Command: CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY TO RECOVERY WINDOW OF 7 DAYS;

• NONE : Follwing command sets to retention policy to NONE, which disables the RMAN retention policy, allowing backups to be kept indefinitely unless managed and deleted by external storage policies.

Command: CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY TO NONE;

  

• CLEAR: The following command will reset the retention policy to the default value (which is redundancy of 1).

Command: CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY CLEAR;

  

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