As of Release 4.5, SAPDBA is integrated with the Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN). You can use RMAN to make incremental backups. To decide which database backups are the best reference for incremental backups you need to know what different types of backup involve and be able to tell them apart.

RMAN Backup Strategies

Complete backup is a generic term. A complete backup can be one of the following:

1. A whole backup -m all :
   Backs up all database objects. This backup is not cataloged which means that you cannot use this backup as a reference backup for an incremental backup with RMAN.
   Syntax: backup_mode = all
2. A full backup -m full :
   Backs up all database objects. You can make a full backup with or without RMAN. If you do not use RMAN, then RMAN is called separately to catalog the backup. This means that you can use this backup as a reference backup for an incremental backup with RMAN.
   Syntax: backup_mode = full
   In the context of the Recovery Manager this backup is a level 0 backup.