Oracle Database Discussions

Hey,

I have been reading about archivelog mode for a while and understand the concept and how it works. The one thing that is still alluding me is the removal/deleting of old archivelog files and how long I need to keep the files.

I hear people saying "backup your archive files", how long do I need to keep the backed up archive files?

What this sounds like to me is "you better keep every archive file ever created by your database in order to restore". This sounds silly to me but thats how I am interpreting this. Can someone please help me understand this a bit better?

Thank