Create Long-Term Backups on Autonomous Database

You can create long-term backups on Autonomous Database with a retention period between three (3) months and up to ten (10) years.

When you create a long-term backup you select to create a one-time backup or set a schedule to automatically create backups that are taken weekly, monthly, or annually (yearly).

You can use a long-term backup to clone a new database. You may clone a new database from any timestamp between a long-term backup timestamp and up to 24 hours post (after) its timestamp. See Clone an Autonomous Database from a Backup for more information.

Note

Long-term backups incur additional costs. See About Long-Term Backups on Autonomous Database for more information.

The Autonomous Database instance must have at least one automatic backup before you can create a long term backup. After you provision or clone an Autonomous Database instance, you may need to wait up to 4 hours before an automatic backup is available. See View Backup Information and Backups on Autonomous Database to find out if a backup exists.

Perform the following prerequisite steps as necessary:

  • Open the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console by clicking the navigation icon next to Oracle Cloud.

  • From the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure left navigation menu click Oracle Database and then, depending on your workload click one of: Autonomous Data Warehouse, Autonomous JSON Database, or Autonomous Transaction Processing.
  • On the Autonomous Databases page select an Autonomous Database from the links under the Display name column.

To create a long-term backup:

  1. On the Autonomous Database Details page, under Resources, click Backups.
  2. On the Autonomous Database Details page, under Backups, click Create long-term backup.
  3. Set the long-term backup retention period.

    In the Years, Months, and Days fields, accept the default value, enter a value, or increment the values to increase or decrease the retention period for each of these choices.

  4. If you want to begin the backup immediately, do not select Schedule long-term backup and skip to the next step.

    If you want to create a backup schedule, select Schedule long-term backup.

    Description of adb_backup_long_term.png follows
    1. Enter a Backup date and time.
    2. Select a repeat interval from the Repeat list.

      When you select One-time (does not repeat), this schedules a single long-term backup to be created on the specified date and time.

      Selecting either Weekly specifies that Autonomous Database repeatedly creates long-term backups at the specified time at a weekly, every 7 days, interval. That is, backups are created and repeat at the same time weekly. For example, if the Backup date and Time is Jan 24, 2023 00:09:28 UTC and this is a Tuesday, and Weekly is selected, the long-term backup will happen every Tuesday.

      Selecting Monthly specifies that Autonomous Database repeatedly creates long-term backups at the specified time each month. When you select Monthly, the backup will occur every month at the date you select. If you select a day of the month >= 29, Autonomous Database takes the backup on the last the last day of the month instead (to account for months with fewer days and leap years).

      Selecting Yearly specifies that Autonomous Database repeatedly creates long-term backups at the specified time each year. When you select Yearly, the backup will occur every year at the date you select. If you select a day of the month >= 29, Autonomous Database takes the backup on the last the last day of the month instead (to account for months with fewer days and leap years).

  5. Click Create.

    If you did not select Schedule long-term backup, Autonomous Database begins creating a long-term backup immediately.

Edit Long-Term Backup Schedule

You can edit the long-term backup schedule for an Autonomous Database instance.

  1. On the Autonomous Database Details page, in the Long-term backup schedule field under Backup, click Edit.

    This shows the Configure long-term backup schedule dialog.

  2. Make changes to the long-term backup schedule.
  3. Click Save.

Delete Long-Term Backup Schedule

You can delete the long-term backup schedule for an Autonomous Database instance.

  1. On the Autonomous Database Details page, in the Long-term backup schedule field under Backup, click Delete Schedule.
  2. In the Delete Schedule confirmation dialog, click Delete.

Delete a Long-Term Backup

You can delete a long-term backup.

To delete a long-term backup,
  1. On the Autonomous Databases page select your Autonomous Database from the links under the Display Name column.
  2. On the Autonomous Database Details page, under Resources, click Backups.
  3. In the table, from the list of backups select the long-term backup you want to delete and click more actions at the end of a row.
  4. In the list, select Delete.