Uncataloging a backupset from the rman repository

Ever seen this error message?

RMAN-06122: CHANGE .. UNCATALOG not supported for BACKUPSET

Seems you’re trying the get clean of backup sets that still exists on disk or tape but should no longer be regarded as a part of this database. What for? Well, this is quite a common requirement for rman-cloned or -duplicated databases where the rman repository (controlfile copy) originates from a seed database. Think of a standby database creation for example.

rman duplicating an oracle database in a new sid / two host scenario

introduction

there are many ways to clone an oracle database. you may just copy and init a cold backup, do a rman restore / recover or employ datapump. according to the number of possibilities there is another multitude number of things you have to evaluate in advance, prepare, configure, keep in mind, postprocess etc., for every clone procedure. me, i mostly use cloning by cold backup, preferably if cloning to another host is requested and if the database system identifier (sid) remains the same. although this way of cloning nearly needs no additional work, you have to take into account that copying the (cold) files from source to destination may take a considerable amount of time, especially for large databases (i’m going to show in another post how to accelerate that by san-snapshotting, a technique becoming deservedly popular lately).

if you cannot go with source database downtimes at all, the rman duplicate functionality might be the preferred choice. it is sort of rman restore / recover, can therefore live on a hot backup, but saves yourself from playing around with controlfile backups / scripts or the nid tool for example. much more far from it, rman duplicate even uses a live, the source, controlfile for automated database structure setup on the destination. but now let’s see how a rman duplicate may work for a given scenario.