Oracle Database Discussions

Hi,

Sorry for the long post and if this question has been asked many times around here (and I'm guessing it must have been ;).

I'll start off by saying I come from an SQL Server background, so Oracle 10g is the first Oracle version I'm working with (this might explain some of the lack of the sense of my questions later ;).

I'm trying to get to know RMAN in its simplest form to basically perform a simple backup/restore operation using a test database. It is not corrupted nor have I lost any control/data files but I'm trying to get to know it before it happens for real and I'm clueless about what to do.

So, I have this database with a table in the SYSTEM schema. I make a backup using the EM Web wizard, which works fine. Since my database is in NOARCHIVELOG, everything's backed up including the controlfiles.

Now, after the backup, I added a column to the table in SYSTEM schema. My simple test is about recovering the database from the backup so that I can come back to the point before the backup.

I understand I should be using the FLASHBACK feature for this if I'm not mistaken, but I'm trying to get a theoretical example running using RMAN, not FLASHBACK and this is the simplest way I've found to see how the restore worked (basically "is the new column there or not?").

I've read the RMAN Getting Started guide and have tried to restore the whole database by running:

RMAN> STARTUP MOUNT;
RMAN> RESTORE DATABASE;
RMAN> RECOVER DATABASE;
RMAN> ALTER DATABASE OPEN;

I got no error from this but in the end, when I open my database again, the new column is there, just as if the restore had not been performed.

So I'm wondering:
Is it like RMAN will only recover data if it is corrupted? If so, is there to tell it to force the restore with what is on the backup? How do you tell RMAN which backup to use if you have more than 1?

Anyways, I'm quite confused right now ;). In MSSQL, you get a file that you can restore over and that's it when you do full backup/restore operations. I guess I'm trying to do that too but maybe that's not what I should try to do.

Thanks a lot,

Greg

P.S: I've already got the links to the RMAN docs and followed an example from there to run my tests. Problem is the stuff I'm wondering is all over the docs bits by bits apparenly and I'm trying to get the big picture :(