Backing up and restoring an Amazon RDS Custom for Oracle DB instance - Amazon Relational Database Service
Creating an RDS Custom for Oracle snapshotRestoring from an RDS Custom for Oracle DB snapshotPoint-in-time recoveryDeleting an RDS Custom for Oracle snapshotDeleting RDS Custom for Oracle automated backups
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Backing up and restoring an Amazon RDS Custom for Oracle DB instance

Like Amazon RDS, RDS Custom creates and saves automated backups of your RDS Custom for Oracle DB instance during the backup window of your DB instance. You can also back up your DB instance manually.

The procedure is identical to taking a snapshot of an Amazon RDS DB instance. The first snapshot of an RDS Custom DB instance contains the data for the full DB instance. Subsequent snapshots are incremental.

Restore DB snapshots using either the Amazon Web Services Management Console or the Amazon CLI.

Creating an RDS Custom for Oracle snapshot

RDS Custom for Oracle creates a storage volume snapshot of your DB instance, backing up the entire DB instance and not just individual databases. When your DB instance contains a container database (CDB), the snapshot of the instance includes the root CDB and all PDBs.

When you create an RDS Custom for Oracle snapshot, specify which RDS Custom DB instance to back up. Give your snapshot a name so you can restore from it later.

When you create a snapshot, RDS Custom for Oracle creates an Amazon EBS snapshot for every volume attached to the DB instance. RDS Custom for Oracle uses the EBS snapshot of the root volume to register a new Amazon Machine Image (AMI). To make snapshots easy to associate with a specific DB instance, they're tagged with DBSnapshotIdentifier, DbiResourceId, and VolumeType.

Creating a DB snapshot results in a brief I/O suspension. This suspension can last from a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on the size and class of your DB instance. The snapshot creation time varies with the size of your database. Because the snapshot includes the entire storage volume, the size of files, such as temporary files, also affects snapshot creation time. To learn more about creating snapshots, see Creating a DB snapshot for a Single-AZ DB instance.

Create an RDS Custom for Oracle snapshot using the console or the Amazon CLI.

To create an RDS Custom snapshot

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/rds/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Databases.

  3. In the list of RDS Custom DB instances, choose the instance for which you want to take a snapshot.

  4. For Actions, choose Take snapshot.

    The Take DB snapshot window appears.

  5. For Snapshot name, enter the name of the snapshot.

  6. Choose Take snapshot.

You create a snapshot of an RDS Custom DB instance by using the create-db-snapshot Amazon CLI command.

Specify the following options:

  • --db-instance-identifier – Identifies which RDS Custom DB instance you are going to back up

  • --db-snapshot-identifier – Names your RDS Custom snapshot so you can restore from it later

In this example, you create a DB snapshot called my-custom-snapshot for an RDS Custom DB instance called my-custom-instance.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws rds create-db-snapshot \
    --db-instance-identifier my-custom-instance \
    --db-snapshot-identifier my-custom-snapshot

For Windows:

aws rds create-db-snapshot ^
    --db-instance-identifier my-custom-instance ^
    --db-snapshot-identifier my-custom-snapshot

Restoring from an RDS Custom for Oracle DB snapshot

When you restore an RDS Custom for Oracle DB instance, you provide the name of the DB snapshot and a name for the new instance. You can't restore from a snapshot to an existing RDS Custom DB instance. A new RDS Custom for Oracle DB instance is created when you restore.

The restore process differs in the following ways from restore in Amazon RDS:

  • Before restoring a snapshot, RDS Custom for Oracle backs up existing configuration files. These files are available on the restored instance in the directory /rdsdbdata/config/backup. RDS Custom for Oracle restores the DB snapshot with default parameters and overwrites the previous database configuration files with existing ones. Thus, the restored instance doesn't preserve custom parameters and changes to database configuration files.

  • The restored database has the same name as in the snapshot. You can't specify a different name. (For RDS Custom for Oracle, the default is ORCL.)

To restore an RDS Custom DB instance from a DB snapshot

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/rds/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots.

  3. Choose the DB snapshot that you want to restore from.

  4. For Actions, choose Restore snapshot.

  5. On the Restore DB instance page, for DB instance identifier, enter the name for your restored RDS Custom DB instance.

  6. Choose Restore DB instance.

You restore an RDS Custom DB snapshot by using the restore-db-instance-from-db-snapshot Amazon CLI command.

If the snapshot you are restoring from is for a private DB instance, make sure to specify both the correct db-subnet-group-name and no-publicly-accessible. Otherwise, the DB instance defaults to publicly accessible. The following options are required:

  • db-snapshot-identifier – Identifies the snapshot from which to restore

  • db-instance-identifier – Specifies the name of the RDS Custom DB instance to create from the DB snapshot

  • custom-iam-instance-profile – Specifies the instance profile associated with the underlying Amazon EC2 instance of an RDS Custom DB instance.

The following code restores the snapshot named my-custom-snapshot for my-custom-instance.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws rds restore-db-instance-from-db-snapshot \
  --db-snapshot-identifier my-custom-snapshot \
  --db-instance-identifier my-custom-instance \
  --custom-iam-instance-profile AWSRDSCustomInstanceProfileForRdsCustomInstance \
  --no-publicly-accessible

For Windows:

aws rds restore-db-instance-from-db-snapshot ^
  --db-snapshot-identifier my-custom-snapshot ^
  --db-instance-identifier my-custom-instance ^
  --custom-iam-instance-profile AWSRDSCustomInstanceProfileForRdsCustomInstance ^
  --no-publicly-accessible

Restoring an RDS Custom for Oracle instance to a point in time

You can restore a DB instance to a specific point in time (PITR), creating a new DB instance. To support PITR, your DB instances must have backup retention set to a nonzero value.

The latest restorable time for an RDS Custom for Oracle DB instance depends on several factors, but is typically within 5 minutes of the current time. To see the latest restorable time for a DB instance, use the Amazon CLI describe-db-instances command and look at the value returned in the LatestRestorableTime field for the DB instance. To see the latest restorable time for each DB instance in the Amazon RDS console, choose Automated backups.

You can restore to any point in time within your backup retention period. To see the earliest restorable time for each DB instance, choose Automated backups in the Amazon RDS console.

For general information about PITR, see Restoring a DB instance to a specified time.

PITR considerations for RDS Custom for Oracle

In RDS Custom for Oracle, PITR differs in the following important ways from PITR in Amazon RDS:

  • The restored database has the same name as in the source DB instance. You can't specify a different name. The default is ORCL.

  • AWSRDSCustomIamRolePolicy requires new permissions. For more information, see Step 2: Add an access policy to AWSRDSCustomInstanceRoleForRdsCustomInstance.

  • All RDS Custom for Oracle DB instances must have backup retention set to a nonzero value.

  • If you change the operating system or DB instance time zone, PITR might not work. For information about changing time zones, see Oracle time zone.

  • If you set automation to ALL_PAUSED, RDS Custom pauses the upload of archived redo log files, including logs created before the latest restorable time (LRT). We recommend that you pause automation for a brief period.

    To illustrate, assume that your LRT is 10 minutes ago. You pause automation. During the pause, RDS Custom doesn't upload archived redo logs. If your DB instance crashes, you can only recover to a time before the LRT that existed when you paused. When you resume automation, RDS Custom resumes uploading logs. The LRT advances. Normal PITR rules apply.

  • In RDS Custom, you can manually specify an arbitrary number of hours to retain archived redo logs before RDS Custom deletes them after upload. Specify the number of hours as follows:

    1. Create a text file named /opt/aws/rdscustomagent/config/redo_logs_custom_configuration.json.

    2. Add a JSON object in the following format: {"archivedLogRetentionHours" : "num_of_hours"}. The number must be an integer in the range 1–840.

  • Assume that you plug a non-CDB into a container database (CDB) as a PDB and then attempt PITR. The operation succeeds only if you previously backed up the PDB. After you create or modify a PDB, we recommend that you always back it up.

  • We recommend that you don't customize database initialization parameters. For example, modifying the following parameters affects PITR:

    • CONTROL_FILE_RECORD_KEEP_TIME affects the rules for uploading and deleting logs.

    • LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_n doesn't support multiple destinations.

    • ARCHIVE_LAG_TARGET affects the latest restorable time. ARCHIVE_LAG_TARGET is set to 300 because the recovery point objective (RPO) is 5 minutes. To honor this objective, RDS switches the online redo log every 5 minutes and stores it in an Amazon S3 bucket. If the frequency of the log switch causes a performance issue for your RDS Custom for Oracle database, you can scale your DB instance and storage to one with higher IOPS and throughput. If necessary for your recovery plan, you can adjust the setting of the ARCHIVE_LAG_TARGET initialization parameter to a value from 60–7200.

  • If you customize database initialization parameters, we strongly recommend that you customize only the following:

    • COMPATIBLE

    • MAX_STRING_SIZE

    • DB_FILES

    • UNDO_TABLESPACE

    • ENABLE_PLUGGABLE_DATABASE

    • CONTROL_FILES

    • AUDIT_TRAIL

    • AUDIT_TRAIL_DEST

    For all other initialization parameters, RDS Custom restores the default values. If you modify a parameter that isn't in the preceding list, it might have an adverse effect on PITR and lead to unpredictable results. For example, CONTROL_FILE_RECORD_KEEP_TIME affects the rules for uploading and deleting logs.

You can restore an RDS Custom DB instance to a point in time using the Amazon Web Services Management Console, the Amazon CLI, or the RDS API.

To restore an RDS Custom DB instance to a specified time

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/rds/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Automated backups.

  3. Choose the RDS Custom DB instance that you want to restore.

  4. For Actions, choose Restore to point in time.

    The Restore to point in time window appears.

  5. Choose Latest restorable time to restore to the latest possible time, or choose Custom to choose a time.

    If you chose Custom, enter the date and time to which you want to restore the instance.

    Times are shown in your local time zone, which is indicated by an offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). For example, UTC-5 is Eastern Standard Time/Central Daylight Time.

  6. For DB instance identifier, enter the name of the target restored RDS Custom DB instance. The name must be unique.

  7. Choose other options as needed, such as DB instance class.

  8. Choose Restore to point in time.

You restore a DB instance to a specified time by using the restore-db-instance-to-point-in-time Amazon CLI command to create a new RDS Custom DB instance.

Use one of the following options to specify the backup to restore from:

  • --source-db-instance-identifier mysourcedbinstance

  • --source-dbi-resource-id dbinstanceresourceID

  • --source-db-instance-automated-backups-arn backupARN

The custom-iam-instance-profile option is required.

The following example restores my-custom-db-instance to a new DB instance named my-restored-custom-db-instance, as of the specified time.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws rds restore-db-instance-to-point-in-time \
    --source-db-instance-identifier my-custom-db-instance\
    --target-db-instance-identifier my-restored-custom-db-instance \
    --custom-iam-instance-profile AWSRDSCustomInstanceProfileForRdsCustomInstance \
    --restore-time 2022-10-14T23:45:00.000Z

For Windows:

aws rds restore-db-instance-to-point-in-time ^
    --source-db-instance-identifier my-custom-db-instance ^
    --target-db-instance-identifier my-restored-custom-db-instance ^
    --custom-iam-instance-profile AWSRDSCustomInstanceProfileForRdsCustomInstance ^
    --restore-time 2022-10-14T23:45:00.000Z

Deleting an RDS Custom for Oracle snapshot

You can delete DB snapshots managed by RDS Custom for Oracle when you no longer need them. The deletion procedure is the same for both Amazon RDS and RDS Custom DB instances.

The Amazon EBS snapshots for the binary and root volumes remain in your account for a longer time because they might be linked to some instances running in your account or to other RDS Custom for Oracle snapshots. These EBS snapshots are automatically deleted after they're no longer related to any existing RDS Custom for Oracle resources (DB instances or backups).

To delete a snapshot of an RDS Custom DB instance

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/rds/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Snapshots.

  3. Choose the DB snapshot that you want to delete.

  4. For Actions, choose Delete snapshot.

  5. Choose Delete on the confirmation page.

To delete an RDS Custom snapshot, use the Amazon CLI command delete-db-snapshot.

The following option is required:

  • --db-snapshot-identifier – The snapshot to be deleted

The following example deletes the my-custom-snapshot DB snapshot.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws rds delete-db-snapshot \  
  --db-snapshot-identifier my-custom-snapshot

For Windows:

aws rds delete-db-snapshot ^
  --db-snapshot-identifier my-custom-snapshot

Deleting RDS Custom for Oracle automated backups

You can delete retained automated backups for RDS Custom for Oracle when they are no longer needed. The procedure is the same as the procedure for deleting Amazon RDS backups.

To delete a retained automated backup

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/rds/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Automated backups.

  3. Choose Retained.

  4. Choose the retained automated backup that you want to delete.

  5. For Actions, choose Delete.

  6. On the confirmation page, enter delete me and choose Delete.

You can delete a retained automated backup by using the Amazon CLI command delete-db-instance-automated-backup.

The following option is used to delete a retained automated backup:

  • --dbi-resource-id – The resource identifier for the source RDS Custom DB instance.

    You can find the resource identifier for the source DB instance of a retained automated backup by using the Amazon CLI command describe-db-instance-automated-backups.

The following example deletes the retained automated backup with source DB instance resource identifier custom-db-123ABCEXAMPLE.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws rds delete-db-instance-automated-backup \
    --dbi-resource-id custom-db-123ABCEXAMPLE

For Windows:

aws rds delete-db-instance-automated-backup ^
    --dbi-resource-id custom-db-123ABCEXAMPLE