About RMAN Compatibility

The following table describes the components of an RMAN environment. Each component has a release number associated with it.

Component	Release Number Refers to ...
RMAN client	Version of RMAN client (displayed when you start RMAN)
Recovery catalog database	Version of Oracle database
Recovery catalog schema in recovery catalog database	Version of RMAN client used to create the recovery catalog
Target database	Version of Oracle database
Auxiliary database	Version of Oracle database

For example, you can use a release 9.0.1 RMAN client with:

A release 9.0.1 target database
A release 9.0.1 duplicate database
A release 8.1.7 recovery catalog database whose catalog tables were created with RMAN release 9.0.1

Determination of Catalog Schema Version

To determine the current release of the catalog schema, you must run a SQL query.

Use SQL*Plus to connect to the recovery catalog database as the catalog owner. For example, enter:
```
% sqlplus rman/rman@catdb
```
Query the rcver catalog table. For example, run this query:
```
SQL> SELECT * FROM rcver; 

     VERSION 
     ------------ 
     08.01.05.00
     09.00.01.00
     10.02.01.00
```
If multiple versions are listed, then the last row is the current version, and the rows before it are prior versions. In the preceding example, the current catalog schema version is 09.00.01.00 and the previous version was 08.01.05.00.

Note that for releases 10.2 and later, the last two digits indicate patch level. For earlier releases, they are always zeros.