Friday, October 05, 2007

Oracle 11g - Snapshot Database

Oracle Database 11g...
What's in your server?

Greetings fellow DBA types. Here is another Oracle Database 11g New Feature, one in particular that I think is quite exciting, Snapshot Databases...

We take you into the bowels of a IT Shop where a conversation is just beginning...

(by the way, I love developers.... I really do. I'm just having fun with you if you are one!)

Developer: Hey DBA! We need to add an index!

DBA: Woops... the test database is being used for testing and I can't change anything now, so we can't test this new index.

Developer: Well, production is in a bad way, users are complaining and your job is on the line, we need to add this index. Do it or I call the boss, and you know he will tell you to do it, because everyone listens to developers and no one listens to DBA's. Of course, if the index does not work, they will blame you, not me!

DBA: Wait! I have an idea! We are using 11g, and our test database has a standby database! We can use Oracle's Snapshot Database!

Developer (stupid look on his face): What?? What is that??

DBA: A great new feature. I can make changes to our standby database like adding your index... we can test the changes, even changing data and the like. Then, just like magic, I flash the thing back and restart the capture process just like nothing happened.

Developer (still not quite understanding, but feinting that he does): WOW! What an amazing feature!

DBA: Yes, and now Oracle gives us easy commands to do this! I simply put the standby database in snapshot mode:

alter database convert to snapshot standby;

Then we add your index, and we test away. Once we are done I can revert the database back to a physical standby database:

alter database convert to physical standby;

and thats it, it's now a standby database again with all the changes, including the new index, rolled back and the redo being applied again from the main database!

Developer (lost, blank look... truly he does not understand): AMAZING! You DBA's have it made.

DBA: Yep!!

Yes, Oracle Snapshot Standby .... Coming in Oracle Database 11g. What's in your Server?

2 comments:

SydOracle said...

Something odd seems to have happened to your RSS feed.
Using http://www.blogger.com/feeds/11463104/posts/default looks fine, but the normal http://robertgfreeman.blogspot.com/atom.xml goes off for some feedburner weblog

Robert Freeman said...

I'll confess that I don't know, I'm not a webmaster type. I added a feed to feedburner just a couple of days ago and the little rss logo.... you are the first that has reported a problem. I've had one other person say that they were getting the RSS feed ok... Maybe I broke something?

 
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