Ramin Hossaini (blog)

Backing up an Oracle database without RMAN

If you aren’t using RMAN for your backups (and are using something like Netapp’s snapshots, or the simple copy-command) (in Oracle 9i this can only be done when the Database is in mounted-mode, not opened), you can do this:

Note: Archivelog must be enabled for this to work.

ALTER DATABASE BEGIN BACKUP;

At this point, you can begin copying/taking snapshots. When you’re done:

ALTER DATABASE END BACKUP;

In older databases, you’ll have to use (run for every tablespace):

ALTER TABLESPACE tablespace_name BEGIN BACKUP;
ALTER TABLESPACE tablespace_name END BACKUP;

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