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Restoring an RDS Custom for Oracle instance to a point in time

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Restoring an RDS Custom for Oracle instance to a point in time - Amazon Relational Database Service
PITR considerations for RDS Custom for Oracle

You can restore a DB instance to a specific point in time (PITR), creating a new DB instance. To support PITR, your DB instances must have backup retention set to a nonzero value.

The latest restorable time for an RDS Custom for Oracle DB instance depends on several factors, but is typically within 5 minutes of the current time. To see the latest restorable time for a DB instance, use the AWS CLI describe-db-instances command and look at the value returned in the LatestRestorableTime field for the DB instance. To see the latest restorable time for each DB instance in the Amazon RDS console, choose Automated backups.

You can restore to any point in time within your backup retention period. To see the earliest restorable time for each DB instance, choose Automated backups in the Amazon RDS console.

For general information about PITR, see Restoring a DB instance to a specified time for Amazon RDS.

PITR considerations for RDS Custom for Oracle

In RDS Custom for Oracle, PITR differs in the following important ways from PITR in Amazon RDS:

  • The restored database has the same name as in the source DB instance. You can't specify a different name. The default is ORCL.

  • AWSRDSCustomIamRolePolicy requires new permissions. For more information, see Step 2: Add an access policy to AWSRDSCustomInstanceRoleForRdsCustomInstance.

  • All RDS Custom for Oracle DB instances must have backup retention set to a nonzero value.

  • If you change the operating system or DB instance time zone, PITR might not work. For information about changing time zones, see Oracle time zone.

  • If you set automation to ALL_PAUSED, RDS Custom pauses the upload of archived redo log files, including logs created before the latest restorable time (LRT). We recommend that you pause automation for a brief period.

    To illustrate, assume that your LRT is 10 minutes ago. You pause automation. During the pause, RDS Custom doesn't upload archived redo logs. If your DB instance crashes, you can only recover to a time before the LRT that existed when you paused. When you resume automation, RDS Custom resumes uploading logs. The LRT advances. Normal PITR rules apply.

  • In RDS Custom, you can manually specify an arbitrary number of hours to retain archived redo logs before RDS Custom deletes them after upload. Specify the number of hours as follows:

    1. Create a text file named /opt/aws/rdscustomagent/config/redo_logs_custom_configuration.json.

    2. Add a JSON object in the following format: {"archivedLogRetentionHours" : "num_of_hours"}. The number must be an integer in the range 1–840.

  • Assume that you plug a non-CDB into a container database (CDB) as a PDB and then attempt PITR. The operation succeeds only if you previously backed up the PDB. After you create or modify a PDB, we recommend that you always back it up.

  • We recommend that you don't customize database initialization parameters. For example, modifying the following parameters affects PITR:

    • CONTROL_FILE_RECORD_KEEP_TIME affects the rules for uploading and deleting logs.

    • LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_n doesn't support multiple destinations.

    • ARCHIVE_LAG_TARGET affects the latest restorable time. ARCHIVE_LAG_TARGET is set to 300 because the recovery point objective (RPO) is 5 minutes. To honor this objective, RDS switches the online redo log every 5 minutes and stores it in an Amazon S3 bucket. If the frequency of the log switch causes a performance issue for your RDS Custom for Oracle database, you can scale your DB instance and storage to one with higher IOPS and throughput. If necessary for your recovery plan, you can adjust the setting of the ARCHIVE_LAG_TARGET initialization parameter to a value from 60–7200.

  • If you customize database initialization parameters, we strongly recommend that you customize only the following:

    • COMPATIBLE

    • MAX_STRING_SIZE

    • DB_FILES

    • UNDO_TABLESPACE

    • ENABLE_PLUGGABLE_DATABASE

    • CONTROL_FILES

    • AUDIT_TRAIL

    • AUDIT_TRAIL_DEST

    For all other initialization parameters, RDS Custom restores the default values. If you modify a parameter that isn't in the preceding list, it might have an adverse effect on PITR and lead to unpredictable results. For example, CONTROL_FILE_RECORD_KEEP_TIME affects the rules for uploading and deleting logs.

You can restore an RDS Custom DB instance to a point in time using the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or the RDS API.

To restore an RDS Custom DB instance to a specified time

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Automated backups.

  3. Choose the RDS Custom DB instance that you want to restore.

  4. For Actions, choose Restore to point in time.

    The Restore to point in time window appears.

  5. Choose Latest restorable time to restore to the latest possible time, or choose Custom to choose a time.

    If you chose Custom, enter the date and time to which you want to restore the instance.

    Times are shown in your local time zone, which is indicated by an offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). For example, UTC-5 is Eastern Standard Time/Central Daylight Time.

  6. For DB instance identifier, enter the name of the target restored RDS Custom DB instance. The name must be unique.

  7. Choose other options as needed, such as DB instance class.

  8. Choose Restore to point in time.

Console

To restore an RDS Custom DB instance to a specified time

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Automated backups.

  3. Choose the RDS Custom DB instance that you want to restore.

  4. For Actions, choose Restore to point in time.

    The Restore to point in time window appears.

  5. Choose Latest restorable time to restore to the latest possible time, or choose Custom to choose a time.

    If you chose Custom, enter the date and time to which you want to restore the instance.

    Times are shown in your local time zone, which is indicated by an offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). For example, UTC-5 is Eastern Standard Time/Central Daylight Time.

  6. For DB instance identifier, enter the name of the target restored RDS Custom DB instance. The name must be unique.

  7. Choose other options as needed, such as DB instance class.

  8. Choose Restore to point in time.

You restore a DB instance to a specified time by using the restore-db-instance-to-point-in-time AWS CLI command to create a new RDS Custom DB instance.

Use one of the following options to specify the backup to restore from:

  • --source-db-instance-identifier mysourcedbinstance

  • --source-dbi-resource-id dbinstanceresourceID

  • --source-db-instance-automated-backups-arn backupARN

The custom-iam-instance-profile option is required.

The following example restores my-custom-db-instance to a new DB instance named my-restored-custom-db-instance, as of the specified time.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws rds restore-db-instance-to-point-in-time \
    --source-db-instance-identifier my-custom-db-instance\
    --target-db-instance-identifier my-restored-custom-db-instance \
    --custom-iam-instance-profile AWSRDSCustomInstanceProfileForRdsCustomInstance \
    --restore-time 2022-10-14T23:45:00.000Z

For Windows:

aws rds restore-db-instance-to-point-in-time ^
    --source-db-instance-identifier my-custom-db-instance ^
    --target-db-instance-identifier my-restored-custom-db-instance ^
    --custom-iam-instance-profile AWSRDSCustomInstanceProfileForRdsCustomInstance ^
    --restore-time 2022-10-14T23:45:00.000Z

You restore a DB instance to a specified time by using the restore-db-instance-to-point-in-time AWS CLI command to create a new RDS Custom DB instance.

Use one of the following options to specify the backup to restore from:

  • --source-db-instance-identifier mysourcedbinstance

  • --source-dbi-resource-id dbinstanceresourceID

  • --source-db-instance-automated-backups-arn backupARN

The custom-iam-instance-profile option is required.

The following example restores my-custom-db-instance to a new DB instance named my-restored-custom-db-instance, as of the specified time.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws rds restore-db-instance-to-point-in-time \
    --source-db-instance-identifier my-custom-db-instance\
    --target-db-instance-identifier my-restored-custom-db-instance \
    --custom-iam-instance-profile AWSRDSCustomInstanceProfileForRdsCustomInstance \
    --restore-time 2022-10-14T23:45:00.000Z

For Windows:

aws rds restore-db-instance-to-point-in-time ^
    --source-db-instance-identifier my-custom-db-instance ^
    --target-db-instance-identifier my-restored-custom-db-instance ^
    --custom-iam-instance-profile AWSRDSCustomInstanceProfileForRdsCustomInstance ^
    --restore-time 2022-10-14T23:45:00.000Z

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Related resources

Amazon RDS API Reference
AWS CLI commands for Amazon RDS
SDKs & Tools 

Related resources

Amazon RDS API Reference
AWS CLI commands for Amazon RDS
SDKs & Tools 
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