One of the important decisions you need to make as a DBA is to determine if the database must be run in ARCHIVELOG mode or NOARCHIVELOG mode. The mode you choose depends on your availability and reliability requirements. It also impacts the type of backup and recovery operations that you can perform.
In NOARCHIVELOG mode, the filled redo log groups that become inactive can be reused. This mode protects the database against instance failure, but not against media failure. In ARCHIVELOG mode, filled groups of redo logs are archived. This mode protects the database from both instance and media failure, but may require additional hardware resources.
See Also:
For a detailed discussion about ARCHIVELOG and NOARCHIVELOG mode, see Oracle Database Administrator's Guide