Configuring encrypted backups

As necessary as it is to ensure that backups (and restores) are performed without spending much time, making these backups secure is also very important. You may ask why and the answer is that if someone gets their hands on the backup of a database, creating a duplicate database from it wouldn't be very tough. That's the reason why backups must be encrypted, to prevent such indirect stealing of databases. As you may have guessed already, RMAN can certainly do this.

From Version 10.2 onwards, RMAN has the option of creating the encrypted backups which will be decrypted during the restore and recover operations. To do so, the decryption keys are required which are stored individually within every backup piece. Also, for each backup set, there will be a separate key generated.

To perform encryption, you need to enable the option using the command CONFIGURE ENCRYPTION FOR DATABASE ON.

There are three modes which are available for encryption:

• Transparent encryption

• Password...