Database Software

Hi Gurus!

I have a couple of questions regarding the Image copy functionality of RMAN, that I would be really grateful if someone could clarify.

1) My understanding of one of the benefits of the Imagecopy backup over a backupset is that in theory you can simply restore the files directly from any media (eg. a tape device) and get the database up and running without the need to recover the RMAN catalog. However when I've run some imagecopy backups against one of our test instances, the backed up file seems to be renamed - eg. the users.dbf becomes o1_mf_users_6wn8fyff_.dbf

My question is - if I was to restore from this how would the instance start - surely the control file is going to be looking for users.dbf? Prehaps there is a way to perform an imagecopy backup - preserving the original file names?

2) When considering whether to backup using Imagecopy or Backupsets, I'm leaning towards imagecopy as in my mind it would be simpler to restore the database(s) in a DR scenario. But if I decided to go down the Backupset route, using a Recovery Catalog, I assume the first restore would need to be the recovery catalog - then use that to restore all the other databases.

Where my head starts to melt is when I think about how you would restore the recovery catalog & the instance it's running on first. If the recovery catalog itself is backed up as a backupset - how do you even restore that? It seems like a chicken or the egg scenario.


Hope someone shine some light on my cloudy brain!
BTW - this is on Oracle 10g

Thanks