Oracle Image Copy Compression

An image copy is an exact copy of a single datafile, archived redo log file, or control file. Image copies are not stored in an RMAN-specific format. They are identical to the results of copying a file with operating system commands.

Why can HyperBac for Oracle compress your image copy backups?

Because HyperBac for Oracle works outside of RMAN and captures backup/restores traffic as it is written to/read from disk. In short, HyperBac for Oracle does not introduce any change to any aspect of your Oracle instance.

HyperBac for Oracle eliminates one of the biggest drawbacks of image copy backups. That is, the need for more storage as RMAN could not native compress such archives.

Consider the following image copy example which is run without compression.

RUN { 
ALLOCATE CHANNEL disk1 DEVICE TYPE DISK FORMAT '/disk1/%d_backups/%U';
ALLOCATE CHANNEL disk2 DEVICE TYPE DISK FORMAT '/disk2/%d_backups/%U';
ALLOCATE CHANNEL disk3 DEVICE TYPE DISK FORMAT '/disk3/%d_backups/%U';
BACKUP AS COPY DATABASE; 
} 

Just as simply, integrating HyperBac for Oracle and compressing the image copies is as simple as changing the output file extension.

RUN { 
ALLOCATE CHANNEL disk1 DEVICE TYPE DISK FORMAT '/disk1/%d_backups/%U.HBC';
ALLOCATE CHANNEL disk2 DEVICE TYPE DISK FORMAT '/disk2/%d_backups/%U.HBC';
ALLOCATE CHANNEL disk3 DEVICE TYPE DISK FORMAT '/disk3/%d_backups/%U.HBC';
BACKUP AS COPY DATABASE; 
}