How to enable Flashback Database feature in Oracle?

 Prerequisites for Flashback Database and Guaranteed Restore Points

Flashback Database

Configure the following database settings before enabling Flashback Database:

-Your database must be running in ARCHIVELOG mode.

-You must have a fast recovery area enabled.

-For Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) databases, the fast recovery area must be in a clustered file system or in ASM.

Guaranteed Restore Points

To use guaranteed restore points,the COMPATIBLE initialization parameter must be set to 10.2.0 or greater.

Steps to enable Flashback Database:

1. Connect to sqlplus as sysdba and set  the desired value for Flashback retention target using below command.

SQL>ALTER SYSTEM SET DB_FLASHBACK_RETENTION_TARGET=4320;

Here, Flashback retention target is set to window of 3 days(4320 Minutes), default value is 1 day (1440 Minutes).

2. Enable the Flashback Database feature for the whole database using the following command:

SQL>ALTER DATABASE FLASHBACK ON;

3.Use the following command to check if Flashback Database is enabled for your target database:

SQL>SELECT FLASHBACK_ON FROM V$DATABASE;