As of Release 4.5A, BRBACKUP supports the incremental backup of the database with the Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN). In an incremental backup, only the changes that have been made since the last complete backup are saved.

The incremental backup strategy optimizes the performance of the data backup; it saves both time and memory. If you do not save as much time as you expect, then this is because each block has to be checked to see if it needs to be backed up, whether it has been changed or not.

The incremental backup strategy is of special advantage for large databases which have few changes on a daily basis.

To be able to make an incremental backup, you must first make a reference backup, a so-called complete backup (level 0). The complete backup (level 0) of the database backs up all Oracle database blocks that have already been used.

You can then make incremental backups: The incremental backup (level 1, cumulative) of the database backs up all Oracle database blocks that have changed since the last complete backup (level 0).

The following describes a possible backup scenario:

• Sundays: Full backup (level 0) of the database
• Monday to Saturday: Incremental backup (level 1, cumulative) of the database

If changes are made to the structure of the database during a backup cycle, for example, if a data file is added, then RMAN terminates in the next incremental backup. However, the integration of RMAN into the SAP backup program BRBACKUP (either with the SAP backup library or an external backup library) lets you make incremental backups even if the structure of the database has been changed.

If, for example, a new file is created in the period between two full backups, all subsequent incremental backups until the next full backup are distributed internally across two savesets.

1. The changes in the old files are backed up incrementally, as usual.
2. BRBACKUP also creates a new saveset, in which it stores the new files. Each of these new files is backed up in full in each incremental backup (level 0).