Preserve Timestamp, mode, owner while using copy command in Unix

In Unix, Sometimes when we need to take a backup of the file we generally add timestamp along with the file and create a backup, however the new file created has the creation date as system date.
This can be avoided using preserve option in unix.
For e.g. I will copy ARXSGPO.rdf from $AR_TOP/reports/US directory. The file signature looks like

-rw-r--r--  1 applmgr oracle 647168 Apr 21 13:31 ARXSGPO.rdf

Now the following files are created using preserve and no preserve option

 cp ARXSGPO.rdf ARXSGPO_np.rdf   # without preserve option
 cp -p ARXSGPO.rdf ARXSGPO_p.rdf # with preserve option

This is how the signature of file looks like

 -rw-r--r--  1 applmgr oracle 647168 Apr 21 13:31 ARXSGPO.rdf
 -rw-r--r--  1 applmgr oracle 647168 Apr 21 13:31 ARXSGPO_p.rdf
 -rw-r--r--  1 applmgr oracle 647168 May  3 23:43 ARXSGPO_np.rdf

It can be noted that ARXSGPO_np.rdf has timestamp as May 3, whereas file ARXSGPO_p.rdf created using preserve mode has timestamp as Apr 21. So using preserve option we can save the original information of the file from where the file is copied.