Autonomous Recovery Service - Listing backups
One of the unique features of the Autonomous Recovery Service (RCV) is the ability to create Long Term Backups by using existing backups that are currently stored in RCV.
NOTE: Long term backups, also known as "Keep" backups are self contained backups that provide the ability to restore to a small predetermined point-in-time window. These long term backups are often stored for months, or even years and are typically used for auditing purposes.
These backups are created dynamically outside of the database itself and the DB host is not used.
Because the DB host is bypassed, the normal backup listings on the DB host using the DBAASCLI tool do not see long term backups.
Viewing backups with OCI
All of the backups can be viewed in both the OCI Console and by using the OCI CLI tool.
In this blog, I will describe how you can use the OCI Cli tool to view all of the backups.
The command I am utilizing to display backups is
oci db backup listUnfortunately, the output from this command is JSON objects which can be difficult to read if you want to produce a report.
In this blog, I show examples leveraging JMESPath queries via the --query flag.
The Foundation: Listing Database Backups
The baseline command to list backups for a specific database requires the --database-id (OCID). By default, we want to output this as a table, grab all records across pages using the --all flag, and project key fields like Shape and Type:
oci db backup list \
--database-id {DB OCID} \
--output table \
--query "data[?\"lifecycle-state\" == 'ACTIVE'] | sort_by(@, &\"time-started\")[].{Backup_Name: \"display-name\", Time_Started: \"time-started\", Status: \"lifecycle-state\", Version: \"version\", OCID: \"id\", Database_size_GBs: \"database-size-in-gbs\",Shape: \"shape\",Type: \"type\"}"Running this execution in your environment outputs a perfectly structured text report directly in your shell stream:
+------------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------+----------------------------------+-------------+-------------+
| Backup_Name | Database_size_GBs | OCID | Shape | Status | Time_Started | Type | Version |
+------------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------+----------------------------------+-------------+-------------+
| Automatic Backup | 24.01171875 | ocid1.dbbackup.oc1.phx.anyhqljtbv6267iafzxovfcfwpr3pcact3e3vu2exz.......... | Exadata.X8M | ACTIVE | 2026-03-30T12:04:06.553000+00:00 | INCREMENTAL | 19.26.0.0.0 |
| Automatic Backup | 24.01171875 | ocid1.dbbackup.oc1.phx.anyhqljtbv6267iat6czxrwvfnhrgl4voypnunsf2qmfc...... | Exadata.X8M | ACTIVE | 2026-03-31T12:05:41.932000+00:00 | INCREMENTAL | 19.26.0.0.0 |
| Automatic Backup | 24.01171875 | ocid1.dbbackup.oc1.phx.anyhqljtbv6267iapdhn7ekp7ax2y74pbbk32yi4c5zr....... | Exadata.X8M | ACTIVE | 2026-04-01T12:05:13.350000+00:00 | INCREMENTAL | 19.26.0.0.0 |
| Automatic Backup | 24.01171875 | ocid1.dbbackup.oc1.phx.anyhqljtbv6267iakasw46kzqpk74g335esjwehihmkfzuj............. | Exadata.X8M | ACTIVE | 2026-04-02T12:04:54.891000+00:00 | INCREMENTAL | 19.26.0.0.0 |
| Automatic Backup | 24.01171875 | ocid1.dbbackup.oc1.phx.anyhqljtbv6267iagzx75s2s6zravvpjoem2rkvtm7ue54d............. | Exadata.X8M | ACTIVE | 2026-04-03T12:05:40.559000+00:00 | INCREMENTAL | 19.26.0.0.0 |
| Automatic Backup | 24.01171875 | ocid1.dbbackup.oc1.phx.anyhqljtbv6267ia2j7s7r464swgvrfc34dqh7b635hupho............. | Exadata.X8M | ACTIVE | 2026-04-04T12:03:59.219000+00:00 | INCREMENTAL | 19.26.0.0.0 |
| Automatic Backup | 24.01171875 | ocid1.dbbackup.oc1.phx.anyhqljtbv6267iawkwrmemheourosyriczq3v7lecgmrcj............. | Exadata.X8M | ACTIVE | 2026-04-05T07:24:00.238000+00:00 | INCREMENTAL | 19.26.0.0.0 |
| Automatic Backup | 24.01171875 | ocid1.dbbackup.oc1.phx.anyhqljtbv6267ia2j25fk53uf5fmfkivkoa6ijcbn3fdg7c............ | Exadata.X8M | ACTIVE | 2026-04-06T12:04:22.389000+00:00 | INCREMENTAL | 19.26.0.0.0 |
| Automatic Backup | 24.01171875 | ocid1.dbbackup.oc1.phx.anyhqljtbv6267iass2o5w5bryallijsjjpk2nso2654jr2............. | Exadata.X8M | ACTIVE | 2026-04-07T12:03:56.898000+00:00 | INCREMENTAL | 19.26.0.0.0 |
| Automatic Backup | 24.01171875 | ocid1.dbbackup.oc1.phx.anyhqljtbv62Finding the most recent backup
In this example, I am limiting the command to extract only daily backups (no long term backups), sort by the execution time, and return only the first record.
This command can be also be used in any scripting to ensure you are cloning from the most recent backup.
oci db backup list \
--database-id {DB OCID} \
--output table \
--query "data[?\"retention-period-in-days\" == \`null\` && \"retention-period-in-years\" == \`null\` && \"lifecycle-state\" == 'ACTIVE'] | sort_by(@, &\"time-started\")[-1].{Backup_Name: \"display-name\", Time_Started: \"time-started\", Status: \"lifecycle-state\", Version: \"version\", OCID: \"id\", Database_size_GBs: \"database-size-in-gbs\",Shape: \"shape\",Type: \"type\"}"Executing this slice pattern evaluates down to a single, isolated record representing your absolute most recent backup:
+------------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------+----------------------------------+-------------+-------------+
| Backup_Name | Database_size_GBs | OCID | Shape | Status | Time_Started | Type | Version |
+------------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------+----------------------------------+-------------+-------------+
| Automatic Backup | 24.01171875 | ocid1.dbbackup.oc1.phx.anyhqljtbv6267iaufuy74ggl2bvf66czd75x3v4366qrwc............. | Exadata.X8M | ACTIVE | 2026-05-19T12:04:12.917000+00:00 | INCREMENTAL | 19.26.0.0.0 |
+------------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------+----------------------------------+-------------+-------------+Finding all of the long term backups
This command will display only backups that were creating with a future expiration date. This can be used to view all of the long term backups that were created for this database.
oci db backup list \
> --database-id {Database OCID} \
> --output table \
> --query "data[?\"time-expiry-scheduled\" != \`null\` && \"lifecycle-state\" == 'ACTIVE'] | sort_by(@, &\"time-started\")[].{Backup_Name: \"display-name\", Time_Bacdkup_Started: \"time-started\", Status: \"lifecycle-state\", Version: \"version\", Time_Backup_Expires: \"time-expiry-scheduled\", OCID: \"id\", Database_size_GBs: \"database-size-in-gbs\",Shape: \"shape\"}"+------------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+-------------+
| Backup_Name | Database_size_GBs | OCID | Shape | Status | Time_Bacdkup_Started | Time_Backup_Expires | Version |
+------------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+-------------+
| Long_term_backup | 21.0 | ocid1.dbbackup.oc1.phx.anyhqljtbv6267iaskl3otjhgovkhvefzcjzckdg3v5sfwfybglhrl2mqz7a | Exadata.X8M | ACTIVE | 2026-05-14T14:39:17.539000+00:00 | 2027-05-14T14:39:18.871000+00:00 | 19.26.0.0.0 |
+------------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+-------------+
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