How to Perform Oracle Instant Recovery [Detailed Steps]

Instant recovery can minimize downtime and reduce data loss when enterprises encounter disasters. Oracle Instant Recovery and AOMEI Cyber Backup both can provide you with instant recovery solutions.

Amelia

By Amelia / Updated on January 23, 2025

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For enterprises facing various disasters, restoring data to normal and maintaining business continuity is the most important thing. Oracle instant recovery is one of the key functions of Oracle database that provides important and fast database recovery, which can minimize downtime and reduce losses. In this article, you will be introduced to what is Oracle fast recover and how to perform instant recovery.

oracle instant recovery

What is Oracle Instant Recovery

Oracle Instant Recovery can quickly restore a database from a backup, allowing the database to be online immediately after the backup is restored. This technology is very important when a database needs to be quickly recovered after a failure, corruption, or data loss.

Key Benefits of Oracle Instant Recovery

Oracle Instant Recovery has many advantages that can help enterprises quickly resume normal operations:

✔Minimizes Downtime: After a backup is restored, the instant recovery process is still in progress, but the database can be accessed and used immediately.

✔Seamless Recovery: Instant recovery eliminates the need to fully restore all database files before making the system available to users, reducing the complexity of the process.

✔Reduce Operational Impact: The instant recovery process is performed in the background, so read/write operations are not delayed during the process.

How to Perform Oracle Instant Recovery

Follow the steps provided below to implement Oracle instant recovery:

Prerequisite

  • Backup availability: Ensure that a valid and recent backup is available for restore.
  • Fast Recovery Area (FRA): Oracle Instant Recovery typically uses the Fast Recovery Area (FRA) to store recovery-related files, so make sure the FRA is configured correctly.
  • Sufficient disk space: Make sure there is enough storage space to save backups and redo logs during the recovery process.

Step 1. Identify the Backup for Recovery

Select the backup you need to perform an instant recovery. If you want to recover from a specific point in time, you need to make sure the backup and archive logs are available.

The following command lists the available backups that can be used for recovery.

RMAN> list backup of database;

Step 2. Restore the Database from the Backup

You need to restore the backup to an appropriate location first. You can use RMAN to restore the backup files to the original database or to a new location. The speed depends on the size of backup and the storage speed.

RMAN> run {
restore database from backup;
}

Step 3. Perform Instant Recovery

▶Once the backup has been restored, the database can be activated in an instant recovery state.

RMAN> run {
recover database until cancel;
}

▶RMAN starts using the archived redo logs and automatically brings the database online. If you want to use the database immediately, you can use the following command:

RMAN> alter database open resetlogs;

Step 4. Apply Redo Logs for Continuous Recovery

After bringing the database online, RMAN will continue to apply redo logs to bring the database back up to date. You can use the following RMAN commands to monitor the recovery progress:

RMAN> recover database until time 'YYYY-MM-DD:HH24:MI:SS';

Step 5. Monitor the Recovery Process

During the recovery process, the database remains in a read-only state until the recovery is complete. You can use the following command to monitor the progress of the redo logging application:

RMAN> list backup of database;
Or, you can use the SQL query to check:
SELECT * FROM v$archived_log WHERE applied = 'NO';

Step 6. Complete the Recovery Process

After applying all redo logs, you can check the database status to ensure that the database is fully synchronized:

SELECT status, thread#, sequence#, first_time, next_time FROM v$archived_log;

If there are no other unapplied redo logs, and the database status shows OPEN, this indicates the recovery is complete.

Alternative: Configure Instant Recovery with a Free and Easy Way

Instant recovery tools are a must-have for an organization to ensure that important data can be recovered quickly and protected when faced with a disaster. Apart from Oracle Instant Recovery, here is another instant recovery solution - AOMEI Cyber Backup. It helps you to minimize the downtime and losses as much as possible, and at the same time, it provides you with:

Powerful Disaster Recovery: It provides an instant recovery solution that minimizes downtime and enables seamless recovery of VMware environments directly.
Centralized Management: It allows multiple virtual machines (VMs) to be backed up simultaneously from a single console, improving management and efficiency.
Automate Schedule Backups: You can set up VMware backup schedules to ensure VMs are protected without manual intervention.

Download FreewareInstant Recovery for VMware ESXi
Secure Download

Simple steps to perform instant recovery

Step 1. Navigate to Task > Instant Recovery > + New Instant Recovery > Restore from task to configure the instant recovery.

create new instant recovery

Step 2. In the Source section, choose the virtual machine and backup version.

Select Source

Step 3. In the Restore to section, choose the target device.

Select Target

Step 4. Set the hardware settings for the new virtual machine, including CPU quantity, CPU Cores, and memory size.

Hardware Configuration

Step 5. Click Start Restore to start the instant recovery.

start restore

Step 6. Click Start Migration to restore the virtual machine to the production environment after the production environment resumes normal.

start migration

Conclusion

Oracle Instant Recovery enables fast database recovery and provides quick access to users while the database continues background recovery. AOMEI Cyber Backup provides instant recovery for VMware environments in simple steps to minimize downtime and enable migration to recovery after recovery. Following the steps provided in this article, you can use both tools to achieve instantaneous recovery.

Amelia
Amelia · Editor
Amelia is an editor from AOMEI. Trained in professional systems, she specializes in solving problems in enterprise databases, virtual machines, and physical environments. With a high sense of responsibility, she is dedicated to protecting business data and security.