On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 ckstehman AT pepco DOT com wrote:

> I am not a database expert, but from what I have learned working with SAP,
>
> I would not recommend doing what you suggest.  If you want to recover the
> database
> to a point in time you need to run with archivelogs on.  You need to stop
> and restart
> the database in order to turn archivelog mode on and off.  I believe that
> a hot backup
> in the scenario you suggest would be useless.  The database might be
> inconsistent.
> The rule is, as I understand, to do hot backups you must run in archivelog
> mode
> all the time.  If you are normally running without archivelogs, you need
> to shut down
> the database and do a cold backup.
>

For what it's worth.

oracle9i has an online backup mode that allows you to 'effectively'
freeze a tablespace and perform a back up of it. DBED uses this feature
for creating checkpoints and also copies over the control and archive
logs so you have a point in time consistent image of the DB.

(you can do something like this yourself to with a bit of scripting
and sql)