CHANGE... AVAILABLE and UNAVAILABLE with RMAN Backups

RMAN can update the repository to show backups as AVAILABLE or UNAVAILABLE. An unavailable backup is one that cannot be accessed at a particular moment but that has not been deleted. For example, you may have backups on tapes that are temporariliy stored offsite and are inaccesible. You can use the CHANGE ... UNAVAILABLE command to update the repository status for these backups to UNAVAILABLE so that RMAN will not select them for use in recovery operations.

When the tapes become available again, you can issue the CHANGE ... AVAILABLE command to update the RMAN repository to show that these backups now can be used. After setting the files back to status AVAILABLE, you can also run a CROSSCHECK to verify that RMAN can access the files.