Nuances of Oracle Managed Files (OMF) and RMAN

Originally posted on “Databases at CERN” blog

Oracle Managed Files (OMF) have many advantages, but the fact that such files could coexist in the same database with manually added (and named) ones, could sometimes lead to confusion. Situation is made worse by the fact, that there is no straightforward way (at least of which I’m aware of…or rather was – please check the comment of Mikhail Velikikh visible on CERN’s blog) to say if the file is Oracle managed or not. Oracle documentation seems to confirm this:

The database identifies an Oracle managed file based on its name.