I've done this in the past and we're considering it again in the group I'm currently working for. It's referred to as an incrementally updated backup in the documentation. I've never heard the term "incremental merge" but it looks like the same thing. I think that with block change tracking it isn't a bad way to go if you have enough online disk space to allocate to the FRA. It certainly has some advantages over a traditional RMAN backup strategy for very large databases. The other caveat is using ASM with the FRA to get "automatic" space management. In 10.1 this wasn't always so automatic, and I haven't used it in 10.2 or 11 (yet), but it does work.
At 10:16 AM 11/26/2008, Allen, Brandon wrote:
I'm not 100% positive, but I believe the answer to all 3 questions is "yes". Maybe this will help:<http:// download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/backup.102/b14192/bkup004.htm#BRBSC186>http:// download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/backup.102/b14192/bkup004.htm#BRBSC186Regards, Brandon
