@MickCOl Please note that as Oracle recommendation and IFS Standards & recommendation we use only RMAN backup recovery. We do not use any third party or any other software as it is not recommended. 

Thank you Ranuka, it is unusual that software comes with good recovery software. I am so used to having to use 3rd party software 

thank you again

Mick

As described above, its always safe to go with the recommendations. 

It is always better and recommended to use Oracle utility to do the actions required on the database end. So that if any problems come up we could get help from Oracle Support according to the support agreement. When you use third-party tools we cannot even get help from Oracle if something goes wrong. So both IFS and Oracle recommend using Oracle utility to do any action on the database end.

In your scenario, RMAN is the oracle utility used for Backup and Restoration. 

Hi,

Recovery Manager (RMAN) is an in-built command line based utility recommended for DB backups and Recovery. Almost all third party DB backup tools which provide a GUI interface, invoke RMAN commands in the background to perform the backups.

Oracle exclusively developed RMAN for backup and recovery purposes and it is already included as part of your DB license.

It is also cost effective to learn RMAN backup and restore commands, instead of paying for a third party tool, unless you are looking for a GUI interface.

There are lot of self-learning resources available online.

Following URL seems as a useful resource to take the database backup using RMAN. It is taken from the official Oracle website.

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/backup.112/e10642/rcmquick.htm#BRADV90059

It is always better and safe to try this in a test environment first. 

@MickCOl Please refer this, which contains the setting up the backup App10 Database IFS Applications 10 Technical Documentation

According to above documentation there is two main ways of taking Oracle DB backups and below are the articles for restoring them.

Online Backup (RMAN) restoration:  Using RMAN to Back Up and Restore Files (oracle.com)

Offline Backups (Data file copy): https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E29597_01/backup.1111/e10642/osadvsce.htm