Recently i have had the opportunity to finally plunge into the world of Dataguard and i was pleasantly surprised by the ease of setup and use for Dataguard. The steps below were used to create a physical standby database. The setup was Oracle 10.2.0.4 on AIX .
These steps do not account for a FAL server at this point.
Prereqs
1. Primary database has to be in archivelog mode
2. Standby redo log files are beneficial and even though not required for physical standby should be created.
3. log_archive_dest_2 needs to be configured which log_archive_dest_state_2 set to defer till the standby is up.
Steps.
1. create a backup of the primary database either on disk or tape.
run {
backup database plus archivelog;
backup current controlfile for standby ; ----- important step
}
2. create an init.ora file and move it to the standby host.
3. modify the init.ora to include a db_unique_name different from primary
4. add db_dile_name_convert and log_file_name_convert if the filesystem structure is not going to be identical to the primary.
5. restore the database on the standby host
On the Standby Host.
rman target abc/abc@def
conn auxiliary /
run {
startup nomount;
duplicate target database for standby dorecover;
}
6. Ensure tnsnames.ora is current and tested ont he primary and standby hosts.
7. Start shipping redo by changing log_archive_dest_state_2=enable on the primary.
You have a physical standby up and running. I'll post some tests and monitoring scripts as well as conversion to a logical standby in future posts
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Books of Interest (Rman)
I thought i should make a quick blog post of some books that have helped me alot as quick reference and as an alternative to the manuals as a fast grab and look books
I'll start with Books on Rman in this first post on books .
Oracle RMAN Pocket Reference
is a very good handy guide to rman syntax and commands though it seems it has not seen an update in a while.
Robert Freeman has a wonderful set of books for Rman in both the 9 and 10 flavors. I keep both at hand for help supporting my 9 and 10 Databases. They have helped me tremendously in supporting backups and restores for my databases
9i Rman Backup And Recovery
10g RMAN Backup & Recovery
I would definitely recommend these as must on hand books for any recoveries or backup help.
I'll start with Books on Rman in this first post on books .
Oracle RMAN Pocket Reference
is a very good handy guide to rman syntax and commands though it seems it has not seen an update in a while.Robert Freeman has a wonderful set of books for Rman in both the 9 and 10 flavors. I keep both at hand for help supporting my 9 and 10 Databases. They have helped me tremendously in supporting backups and restores for my databases
9i Rman Backup And Recovery
10g RMAN Backup & Recovery
I would definitely recommend these as must on hand books for any recoveries or backup help.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
RIP @carlback
The tweets have been pouring in about Carl Backstrom a prominent Apex evangalist and Product manager at Oracle that died in a car crash yesterday. Jow Kallman has some detail about the contact with the family and about getting a trust opened for Carl's Daughter here .
I had the oppuruntunity to meet Carl at Open world this year and had been following and learning about APex thru Carl for a while a great loss indeed.
RIP @carlback
Soem info about carl backstrom can be found at this blog http://carlback.blogspot.com
I had the oppuruntunity to meet Carl at Open world this year and had been following and learning about APex thru Carl for a while a great loss indeed.
RIP @carlback
Soem info about carl backstrom can be found at this blog http://carlback.blogspot.com
Monday, October 20, 2008
OOW 2008 Final thoughts
I had the opportunity to attend Oracle Openworld this year and i was blown away by all the people and the content presented at OOW this year.
Barring a few technical mishaps like Schedule Builder being down for a about a day it seemed that the event was very well planned and The teams behind the event should get a big kudos for managing and arranging such a huge event as well as they did.
There was a lot of knowledge shared during the event at the presentations as well as the lounges. I truly believe for me the lounges were the highlight of the event. Meeting a lot of fellow Tweeters, Bloggers and Oracle Ace's was simply fabulous. There was a lot of knowledge transfer and knowledge building during this event.
The unconference events were a nice way to sit back , relax and understand some nice technical content.
The Oracle Fusion Middleware lounge were doing some nice video post cards Which can be seen here .
Some pictures of the event can be found here and at flickr here.
Some of the important announcement included Exadata appliance and the Oracle Database machine which marked Oracle's move into the hardware arena in partnership with HP. Oracle Beehive a successor to Oracle Collaboration suite was also announced at the event.
Barring a few technical mishaps like Schedule Builder being down for a about a day it seemed that the event was very well planned and The teams behind the event should get a big kudos for managing and arranging such a huge event as well as they did.
There was a lot of knowledge shared during the event at the presentations as well as the lounges. I truly believe for me the lounges were the highlight of the event. Meeting a lot of fellow Tweeters, Bloggers and Oracle Ace's was simply fabulous. There was a lot of knowledge transfer and knowledge building during this event.
The unconference events were a nice way to sit back , relax and understand some nice technical content.
The Oracle Fusion Middleware lounge were doing some nice video post cards Which can be seen here .
Some pictures of the event can be found here and at flickr here.
Some of the important announcement included Exadata appliance and the Oracle Database machine which marked Oracle's move into the hardware arena in partnership with HP. Oracle Beehive a successor to Oracle Collaboration suite was also announced at the event.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
All Aboard for OpenWorld
Oracle OpenWorld Starts Sunday September 20th. This year there are a lot of things that are planned. Its my first time out there to OpenWorld and to San Francisco so i can imagine this to be a very interesting trip.For those commuting via the shuttle (Thats me too) . The Shuttle Schedule can be found here .
Hashtag #oow08 will be used for twitter . For a mostly complete list of Oracle tweeters you can look here. Flickr and all other tagging services can use #openworld08 for tagging blogs and pictures. You can also tweet @oow with your tweet to get into the openworld public timeline with your name. You can find Oracle Ace's at the OTN Lounge . The Hours are posted here .There are 8 Lounges this year at OpenWorld. All the details can be found at the OpenWorld homepage and OTN night should be real fun. If you are there dont miss to attend some of the UnConference sessions too a list of which can be found here. The Sunday user group session are very interesting and do signup for the exam cram on sunday . This Year its 11g new Features,Signup details are here. OCP's get a crack with free self test software exams at the OCP Lounge Details here.
There will be a lot of blogging activity over the next couple of days about the various aspects of the Oracle Openworld conference and all the networking opportunities. The Oracle Openwordl Page is being constantly updated with new stuff here.
As Usual the community has come up with all sorts ofways to support Oracle Openworld with the Friendfeed room . Eddie Awad's Openworld 2008 Aggregator using Yahoo Pipes .Oraclecommunity.net and Oracle Mix are there for all social junkies. Matt Topper has Collok a collborative site to send tweets and sms about your sessions. As usual Orana will be aggregating all the blogs.
Mobile Services from oracle will be available Sat September 20th with details here. Oracle has a Green Initiative This year and there are a lot of sessions about the Green Initiative. Did i mention Michael Phelps is also there. There is a lot more there with the exhibition hall and networking parties all week long.
I dont know how to clone myself to attend all the interestign sessions out there but i hope to see all my fellow tweeters and bloggers over the course of this conference and all aboard for a wonderful conference.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Duplicate in Oracle 10 to a remote server
One of my fellow DBA's ran into a problem when trying to get duplicate working for restoring the database to another server.
After we resolved the issue and learned the lesson that a simple mistake can lead to hours of rman frustration . I thought it would be interesting to document .
The problem
Duplicate development database to new development server.
Tool Used
Rman command line
Server
AIX 5.3
After the DBA took the backup and had the backup NFS mounted on the system. He was unable to run duplicate on the new node. All auxialliary setup was complete and had seemed perfect.
An Rman catalog was used and Rman kept complaining that there were no backups to restore.
We tried a couple of things
remounted the NFS with the options rw,bg,hard,nointr,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,tcp,vers=3,timeo=600,actimeo=0
based on Note:424785.1 which we thought didnt work
Looked at Note:356199.1 and set event="10298 trace name context forever, level 32"
This didnt help either
The duplicate script was simple
connect target test/test@test
connect catalog abc/abc@abc
connect auxiliary aux/aux@aux
run {
duplicate target database to aux
}
The commands were being executed from the auxiliary server and network config was testedto be valid.
The Solution
The problem turned out to be that the dev database was changed to be an archivelog database and the archive logs were not backed up as part of the backup process. Rman kept generating an SCN that was in the archivelogs that it could not find in the catalog at all( I'm guessing since it was connected to the target it got the info from there).
As soon as the archive logs were backed up and made available the duplicate worked like a charm.
Moral of the Story : Rman needs less cryptic messages
Technorati Tags: oracle, backup , rman
After we resolved the issue and learned the lesson that a simple mistake can lead to hours of rman frustration . I thought it would be interesting to document .
The problem
Duplicate development database to new development server.
Tool Used
Rman command line
Server
AIX 5.3
After the DBA took the backup and had the backup NFS mounted on the system. He was unable to run duplicate on the new node. All auxialliary setup was complete and had seemed perfect.
An Rman catalog was used and Rman kept complaining that there were no backups to restore.
We tried a couple of things
remounted the NFS with the options rw,bg,hard,nointr,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,tcp,vers=3,timeo=600,actimeo=0
based on Note:424785.1 which we thought didnt work
Looked at Note:356199.1 and set event="10298 trace name context forever, level 32"
This didnt help either
The duplicate script was simple
connect target test/test@test
connect catalog abc/abc@abc
connect auxiliary aux/aux@aux
run {
duplicate target database to aux
}
The commands were being executed from the auxiliary server and network config was testedto be valid.
The Solution
The problem turned out to be that the dev database was changed to be an archivelog database and the archive logs were not backed up as part of the backup process. Rman kept generating an SCN that was in the archivelogs that it could not find in the catalog at all( I'm guessing since it was connected to the target it got the info from there).
As soon as the archive logs were backed up and made available the duplicate worked like a charm.
Moral of the Story : Rman needs less cryptic messages
Technorati Tags: oracle, backup , rman
Monday, August 18, 2008
My First Openworld
Well thanks to the folks at Oracle I get to go to my First Oracle Openworld. While i have had the opportunity to go to IOUG and Hotsos have never had the chance to make it to Openworld.
Here is a list of the sessions i plan to attend based on my initial run thru of the schedule builder. I'm still hoping to get into the exam cram on sunday and maybe find more sessions of value
Here is a list of the sessions i plan to attend based on my initial run thru of the schedule builder. I'm still hoping to get into the exam cram on sunday and maybe find more sessions of value
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Dataguard 11g - No more same hardware/software requirement(partially)
While trying to look at dataguard as a reporting environment i found a very neat and fundamentally cost saving feature added on to dataguard in Oracle 11.
According to the Docs
"As of Oracle Database 11g, Data Guard provides increased flexibility for Data Guard configurations in which the primary and standby systems may have different CPU architectures, operating systems (for example, Windows & Linux), operating system binaries (32-bit/64-bit), and Oracle database binaries (32-bit/64-bit).
This is very interesting and actually provide a lot of cost savings to companies that have systems using Windows based servers and can purchase cheaper linux boxes and make that available . The problem is based on the matrix in note 413484.1 pretty much only Windows and Linux can live in a mixed environment . AIX and Solaris can only live with the same architecture.
According to the Docs
"As of Oracle Database 11g, Data Guard provides increased flexibility for Data Guard configurations in which the primary and standby systems may have different CPU architectures, operating systems (for example, Windows & Linux), operating system binaries (32-bit/64-bit), and Oracle database binaries (32-bit/64-bit).
This is very interesting and actually provide a lot of cost savings to companies that have systems using Windows based servers and can purchase cheaper linux boxes and make that available . The problem is based on the matrix in note 413484.1 pretty much only Windows and Linux can live in a mixed environment . AIX and Solaris can only live with the same architecture.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Oracle 9.2 desupport and Oracle 10 Upgrade tips
For all those folks who were living in the 9.2 world with the extended fee waived . It seems that July 31st is the date when oracle takes away that support and customers will have to pay for extended support which will go thru 2010 . Metalink Note 392222.1 has details about this .
As far as 10.2 upgrades go Oracle has been working on documents like the Oracle 10.2 Upgrade companion and SQLTXPLAIN for working with upgrades. The Upgrade COmpanion can be found as Note : 466181.1 and has alot of good info about the upgrade process as well as safeguards for the database. I'm still workign on trying out the stored outlines suggestion to see if that helps in a situation where oracle would change an explain for the worse
As far as 10.2 upgrades go Oracle has been working on documents like the Oracle 10.2 Upgrade companion and SQLTXPLAIN for working with upgrades. The Upgrade COmpanion can be found as Note : 466181.1 and has alot of good info about the upgrade process as well as safeguards for the database. I'm still workign on trying out the stored outlines suggestion to see if that helps in a situation where oracle would change an explain for the worse
Sunday, July 20, 2008
iPhone first impressions (Non Oracle)
So i got my iphone yesterday and based on 2 days worth of testing . I found the iphone to be a definite step up from my blackberry. I think its still not fully enterprise ready with no support for Lotus notes first or third party . I guess i've heard IBM is supposed to working on an appstore app. App store apps have so far been v1 and in the 2 days i've been using it i've had constant crashes and the accelerometer and other apps have been slow to respond. I've not been very happy with the mail app since it doesnt go widescreen . without a physical keyboard it gets hard to type email in normal mode. The GPS is good but somehow not very accurate. The battery life on 3G is horrible but disabling 3G give it more than 5 hrs.
Apps like twitterific and pandora are real nice and web browsing is awesome. i wish i could download podcast over wifi but seems the itunes store only provides purchases online.
I'm still learning the iphone so might find better ways of doing things and maybe a way to sync my lotus notes calendar to my phone .
Apps like twitterific and pandora are real nice and web browsing is awesome. i wish i could download podcast over wifi but seems the itunes store only provides purchases online.
I'm still learning the iphone so might find better ways of doing things and maybe a way to sync my lotus notes calendar to my phone .
Friday, June 13, 2008
TroubleShooting Oracle Performance Book
With troubleshooting Oracle Performance becoming so complicated and
time consuming it is good that people like Jonathan Lewis are writing books like Cost based Oracle Fundamentals.
Now Jonathan brings word that Christian Antogini of the Oak Table Network is publishing the book Troubleshooting Oracle Performance
I just preordered this book from Amazon and hope this continues the tradition of good books from the members of the oak table network
time consuming it is good that people like Jonathan Lewis are writing books like Cost based Oracle Fundamentals.
Now Jonathan brings word that Christian Antogini of the Oak Table Network is publishing the book Troubleshooting Oracle Performance
I just preordered this book from Amazon and hope this continues the tradition of good books from the members of the oak table network
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
RAT and 10.2.0.4
Just put in 10.2.0.4 in development and got RAT included . i wonder how licensing works on this .
SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.4.0 - Production on Wed Jun 4 09:21:18 2008
Copyright (c) 1982, 2007, Oracle. All Rights Reserved.
Connected to:
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.4.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options
Doug Burns just bloged about this here.
It seems that everyone started to noticing this change in their environments.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Vacation time.
I'm in doha airport right now just trying to catch up on blogs and stuff. i know i havent posted in a while but it is only prudent to post when something worthwhile comes up. anyways I'm on vacation for the next 3 weeks and hopefully that time will enable me to think about new material too. :)
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
The Net of 2008
Blogoscoped has this very interesting article about the Net of 2008 . Even though its non Oracle i thought i'd share it here . It talks about the actions we take today repeatedly to perform tasks and how that has evolved. Interested reading
Friday, February 01, 2008
The Oracle Community Network has arrived
Eddie Awad has done it again. Oracle Community Which is the Oracle Face book was just launched. Join in the fun and network with Other Oracle folks .
Monday, January 28, 2008
Real Application Testing - The final frontier
Just read thru Girlgeek's Blog about RAT. This is a feature which i have been very interested in ever since it was announced and share the same skeptism that she does. In this age of HIPAA,SOX etc what use is RAT if masking cannot be done . this would ensure my offshore developers have all my production data. The one ability i would so like to get RAT for is the ability to test upgrades. For some OLTP applications it is virtually impossible to account for the network latency and the volume . RAT has the potiental to solve that but since i have not seen any documentation or tried it out yet. I'm guessing RAT cannot be used in Lower Database e.g 9 or 10. Making it available to those database as a collector might be so beneficial to a lot of DBA's who aim for a smooth upgrade.
Technorati Tags: oracle, new features
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Twit this or how a thought becomes a solution
This morning i posted a thought on twitter. This was based on my frustration with getting oid to work and the problems understanding the documentation that i have . The response was not only surprising but as Dan Norris states in his blog post in complete detail with patches. Both Matt Topper @topperge and Dan norris @dannorris helped me out in not only identifying what i needed but what documentation i needed. This web 2.0 thingy rocks. :)
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Bug fix: innapropriate ioctl for device
Apparently 10.2.0.3 has an issues with veritas or solstice disk suite.
I just finished setting up a new server with Solaris 9 and 10.2.0.3 on a database install got inappropriate ioctl for device. after confirmation from my sysadmins that the problem was not the disk or the OS. I found Note:405825.1 which describes the exact problem that i had and the fix was applying Patch 5752399. This is published as Bug 5747918. The database creation was successful after application of the patch
I just finished setting up a new server with Solaris 9 and 10.2.0.3 on a database install got inappropriate ioctl for device. after confirmation from my sysadmins that the problem was not the disk or the OS. I found Note:405825.1 which describes the exact problem that i had and the fix was applying Patch 5752399. This is published as Bug 5747918. The database creation was successful after application of the patch
The OID Chronicles. Part 1
Being a non Oracle AS infrastructure person . I am now trying to get Oracle Internet Directory configured on a a centralized server to test the Service names resolution capabilities. I found the 3 CD's that were required copied them to a unix server and am now in the process of painfully installing them. The first problem that i hit was shmmin shmseg were not set on this solris 9 server. Oracle 9.2 is already installed and working on this server. reading thru the docs i found out shmseg is an obsolete parameter. I had the sysadmin put this in anyways and have them reboot the server. I put an Oracle 10.2 instance to save time on installing the database that comes with the AS infrastructure . The second thing i hit was AS requires a new Home which makes sense. The 3rd thing i hit was even though my TNS_ADMIN was unset it found out thati have a system wide tnsnames.ora . done know why it matters but it wants me to remove the link /etc before it can proceed. Lets see what it says next after the break :)
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Want to learn how to Install Oracle
Nice Video Reference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHzV4LZnvHc
Thanks to Jonathan Lewis to point this out on his blog
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHzV4LZnvHc
Thanks to Jonathan Lewis to point this out on his blog
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
