This illustration is a tree depicting the types of backups that you can  make. Whole database backups can be either closed and consistent, or inconsistent. Consistent backups can be made in ARCHIVELOG or NOARCHIVELOG mode. Inconsistent backups can be made in ARCHIVELOG mode, but cannot validly be made in NOARCHIVELOG mode. An inconsistent ARCHIVELOG mode backup can be made while the database is open or closed.