RMAN is Oracle's flagship backup and recovery tool, but did you know it's also an effective database duplication tool? Oracle RMAN Database Duplication is a deep dive into RMAN's duplication feature set, showing how RMAN can make it so much easier for you as a database administrator to satisfy the many requests from developers and testers for database copies and refreshes for use in their work. You'll learn to make and refresh duplicate databases with a single command, and of course you can automate and schedule that command so that developers and testers are supplied with regular, known good databases without any manual intervention on your part.

Fast and easy provisioning of databases for developers and testers is a driving force in the move to cloud computing and virtualization. RMAN's robust database duplication feature set plays right into this growing need for ease of provisioning, enabling easy duplication of known-good databases on demand, across operating systems such as between Linux and Solaris, and even across storage environments such as when duplicating from a RAC/ASM environment to a single-node instance using regular file system storage. Oracle RMAN Database Duplication is your thorough guide to providing amazing business value to your organization by way of fast and easy provisioning of database duplicates in service of development and testing projects.

Darl Kuhn is a senior database administrator working for Oracle. He handles all facets of database administration from design and development to production support. He also teaches advanced database courses at Regis University in Colorado. Darl does volunteer DBA work for the Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group. He has a graduate degree from Colorado State University and lives near Spanish Peaks, Colorado, with his wife, Heidi, and daughters, Brandi and Lisa.

1. Introduction

2. Manually Cloning Databases

3. Backup Based Duplication

4. Active Duplication

5. Advanced Topics

6. Oracle Net Primer