Dear RMAN connoisseurs,
how do I get RMAN to automatically delete archivelogs never backed up?
Let's say I have configured a retention window of 14 days, rendering backups older than >14 days obsolete (and being deleted).
Let's also assume our LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST points already to the backup storage system, so there's no need to explicitly back them up (since the originals are already in the backup location and backing them up would create rather pointless copies).
Now, how do I delete those archivelogs >14 days (more exact: from before my oldest, but not-yet-obsoleted backup set), even though these have never been backed up...?
The 11g RMAN docs say for archivelogs to become eligible to be deleted, they must A) been backed up at least once to disk and B) must be older than my retention policy.
I have tried to CONFIGURE ARCHIVELOG DELETION POLICY TO BACKED UP 0 TIMES TO DISK; but this is refused by RMAN, of course.
Since my retention window covers 14 days, I will never have backups older than ~14 days, rendering useless all archive logs from before my oldest still-existing backup set. Yet it seems as if I cannot delete them unless they have been backed up...
May be I didn't understand some conceptual thing here, may be our idea of setting LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST to point straight into the backup storage is not so good...
Can you sched some light to this problem...?