Release Notes 1.6

1.6.1

	backup_rman	Incremental level 1 backup sets are now refused with a clear message naming the backup set

FastBCP 1.6.0 read an incremental level 1 backup set as a full backup: the export held only the rows of the blocks changed since the previous backup, with no error. Full backups and incremental level 0 backups were read correctly.

warning

If you exported tables with FastBCP 1.6.0 from RMAN incremental level 1 backups, export them again from the full (or level 0) backup with 1.6.1.

Component	Version
ArpeOraBackup ADBC driver	0.1.1

1.6.0: Oracle RMAN Backups

Your Oracle backups are a data source too. FastBCP 1.6 reads tables straight from RMAN backup sets and exports them to Parquet — no restore, no Oracle instance, no extra disk space.

0

Oracle instance needed

Point FastBCP at the directory of the backup pieces. No database to restore, no credentials.

1 M rows

in under a second

From an uncompressed, LOW, MEDIUM or HIGH compressed backup, open included.

8×

faster start on striped SQL Server backups

Large compressed backups striped over several files are ready to export in seconds, not minutes.

3×

faster in scheduled tasks

On Windows, a run without a window now gets the full speed of the CPU.

What's New: At a Glance

	New source	--connectiontype backup_rman: export tables from Oracle RMAN backup sets, multi-piece or not, compressed or not
	SQL Server backups	Large striped backups start much faster; more databases and tables are read, with the right values
	Windows	Full speed without a window: scheduled tasks, services and orchestrators no longer run on the efficiency cores
	Doc Wizard	backup_rman in the ADBC connectors
	License	The ARPE.IO Software License Agreement ships with FastBCP

Oracle RMAN Backup Sets — --connectiontype backup_rman

Need the data of an Oracle database that is not reachable — on a backup server, in an archive, a database decommissioned long ago — or don't want to restore a large backup to read one table? FastBCP now reads RMAN backup sets directly through the embedded ArpeOraBackup ADBC driver.

• --server is the directory holding the backup pieces.
• --database names the pieces: names or patterns, separated by ; ("full_*", "full_*;ctl_*").
• That's it: no user, no password, no Oracle.

Windows

.\FastBCP.exe `
  --connectiontype backup_rman `
  --server "D:\Backups\RMAN\ORCL" `
  --database "full_*" `
  --sourceschema "SALES" `
  --sourcetable "ORDERS" `
  --directory "D:\export\orders" `
  --fileoutput "orders.parquet" `
  --parallelmethod Physical `
  --paralleldegree 8

Linux

./FastBCP \
  --connectiontype backup_rman \
  --server "/backup/rman/orcl" \
  --database "full_*" \
  --sourceschema "SALES" \
  --sourcetable "ORDERS" \
  --directory "/export/orders" \
  --fileoutput "orders.parquet" \
  --parallelmethod Physical \
  --paralleldegree 8

Every RMAN Compression

FastBCP to Parquet, a 1 M-row table, open of the backup included, Windows laptop (hybrid CPU), degree 8.

Backup	Elapsed
Uncompressed	0.73 s
AS COMPRESSED BACKUPSET, MEDIUM	0.83 s
AS COMPRESSED BACKUPSET, HIGH	0.82 s
AS COMPRESSED BACKUPSET, LOW	1.04 s
AS COMPRESSED BACKUPSET, BASIC	7.0 s
AS COMPRESSED BACKUPSET, HIGH, Oracle 19c	6.0 s

What It Reads

		Supported
	Oracle versions	19c, 21c, 23ai and 26ai, on Linux x86-64
	Backup types	Full backup sets of a database, tablespaces, datafiles or PDBs, uncompressed or compressed with BASIC, LOW, MEDIUM or HIGH
	Multi-piece and multi-set backups	MAXPIECESIZE, several channels, FILESPERSET: every piece, by patterns or a ;-separated list, in any order
	Several backups	The most recent copy of each datafile is read
	Database layout	Container databases (root and PDBs) and non-CDB, bigfile and smallfile tablespaces
	Tables	Heap tables, with chained and migrated rows, more than 255 columns
	Data types	Numbers, text in the database and national character sets, binary floats, RAW, DATE and TIMESTAMP — see the datatypes mapping

Good to know

• Parquet output only, on Windows x64 and Linux x64.
• --parallelmethod accepts None and Physical (which resolves to the Pages method).
• --query accepts SELECT * | col1, col2, … FROM [[container.]owner.]table.
• An incremental level 0 backup is read like a full backup; incremental level 1 backups are refused since 1.6.1.
• Refused with a clear message: encrypted backup sets (SET ENCRYPTION); partitioned, index-organized and clustered tables; LOB, INTERVAL, ROWID, JSON, VECTOR and object columns (the other columns of the table can be exported with --query); incomplete multi-piece sets.

See also: Oracle RMAN backup sets · Examples

SQL Server Backups: Large Striped Backups and Fixes

A compressed backup striped over many files could keep --connectiontype backup_mssql busy for minutes before the first row, on what looked like a single thread. The backup files are now prepared in parallel (internal improvement).

TPC-H SF100 database (150 M-row orders), backed up with COMPRESSION (XPRESS) and striped over 6 files (36 GB), Windows laptop.

Before the first row	1.5.1	1.6.0
Compressed backup, 6 files	200 s	25 s
Uncompressed backup, 6 files	24 s	7.4 s

Export of orders to Parquet (zstd), --parallelmethod Physical, --paralleldegree 24	1.5.1	1.6.0
150,000,000 rows, compressed backup over 6 files	error	33 s

	Fixed
	system table on a PAGE-compressed page: not supported	Databases created on older SQL Server versions (for example 2016, compatibility level 130) are now read
	corrupt anchor record	Some PAGE-compressed tables are now read
	Wrong float / real values	Some clustered columnstore float and real columns came out with wrong values (for example 5870.58 as 58705800)
	Wrong long strings	In clustered columnstore tables, some strings of 128 bytes and more came out with a stray character in front and their last character missing

warning

The last two came with no error. If you exported clustered columnstore tables with float / real columns or long strings from SQL Server backups with FastBCP 1.5, export them again with 1.6.

Windows: Full Speed in Scheduled Tasks

On Windows 11, a program started without a window — a scheduled task, a service, an orchestrator, a remote shell — runs on the efficiency cores of a hybrid CPU, at a reduced clock. FastBCP now asks Windows for full speed when it starts.

Same export, started without a window	Elapsed
FastBCP 1.6.0	5.7 s
FastBCP 1.5.1	18.1 s

Set FASTBCP_ECOQOS=1 to keep FastBCP under the Windows policy, on a host where it must stay discreet.

Doc Wizard

The Doc Wizard offers backup_rman in the ADBC (High Performance) connectors: the server field becomes the directory of the backup pieces, the database field the piece names or patterns, and only None and Physical are offered as parallel methods.

License

FastBCP now ships the ARPE.IO Software License Agreement (LICENSE.txt in the zip). The license grant is unchanged; the agreement adds that the binaries may not be reverse engineered, manually or with the help of an AI system, and that the software may not be used to train an AI model to reproduce it. Using an AI assistant to operate FastBCP stays permitted. See License.

Dependencies

Component	Version
ArpeOraBackup ADBC driver	0.1.0 (new)
ArpeMSBackup ADBC driver	0.1.8
AdbcFileExport	0.5.6 (arpeorabackup driver profile)

The other components are unchanged since 1.5.1.