Table Of ContentOracle Data Guard 11gR2
Administration Beginner's Guide
Learn how to build and maintain Data Guard configurations
with real-life, practical examples
Emre Baransel
Nassyam Basha
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Oracle Data Guard 11gR2 Administration Beginner's Guide
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First published: June 2013
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Cover Image by Sandeep Babu ([email protected])
Credits
Authors Project Coordinator
Emre Baransel Leena Purkait
Nassyam Basha
Proofreaders
Dirk Manuel
Reviewers
Stephen Copestake
Syed Jaffar Hussain
Michael Seberg
Indexer
Joel Perez
Hemangini Bari
Acquisition Editor
Graphics
Martin Bell
Abhinash Sahu
Lead Technical Editor
Production Coordinator
Susmita Panda
Aparna Bhagat
Technical Editors
Cover Work
Ankita Meshram
Aparna Bhagat
Veena Pagare
Zafeer Rais
Copy Editors
Insiya Morbiwala
Aditya Nair
Alfida Paiva
Laxmi Subramanian
About the Authors
Emre Baransel is a graduate of Electrical and Electronic engineering and has two Master's,
one in Business Administration and the other one in Information Systems. He has been
working in the IT industry for the past 10 years. He has worked for one of the largest
fixed-line and GSM technology-based companies in Turkey. He was nominated as an Oracle
ACE in 2012. He's an Oracle Certified Professional (OCP), a founding member of TROUG
(Turkish Oracle User Group), and a blogger at emrebaransel.blogspot.com. He has
spoken at the Oracle Open World in the US and at user group conferences in different
countries of Europe. He has also contributed to the Oracle RMAN 11g Backup and Recovery
book in 2010. He has focused specially on high database availability and disaster recovery
solutions, cloud technologies, and database security.
First of all, I would like to thank the love of my life, my wife Tulay, for her
patience and support during the time I was writing this book, and my super
sweet son Demir for his presence in my life. I would also like to thank my
co-author Nassyam for his great effort on this book under intense work
pressure, the technical reviewers Jaffar, Joel, and Michael for their valuable
time, and the Packt Publishing team for all their help and labor on this
book. Thousands of hours were spent on this book by many different
people. Thank you all who made this book possible.
Nassyam Basha is a Database Administrator. He has around seven years of IT experience
of which the last five years have been as a Production Oracle DBA. He is a post graduate
who holds a master's degree in Computer Applications from the University of Madras. He
started working with dBase and FoxPro, and has participated in several projects with FoxPro
and Oracle database starting from Oracle 7. He is an Oracle 10g Certified Professional having
good knowledge in Oracle technologies such as Data Guard, RMAN, RAC, and performance
tuning. He has completed more than 90 Data Guard setups on all platforms, from RAC to
non-RAC and successful cluster migrations with switchovers and failovers for many business-
critical production databases with major Data Guard-related issues. He actively participates
in Oracle-related forums such as OTN, having 9000+ posts, using the profile Freelists
(https://forums.oracle.com/forums/profile.jspa?editMode=true&user
ID=651869). He maintains an Oracle technology-related blog, (www.oracle-ckpt.com)
and he is reachable at [email protected].
Above and beyond all others, I have to thank my Almighty Allah and my
parents N. Abdul Aleem and Rahimunnisa. Without them I wouldn't have
been able to be what I am today. A special thanks to my brother Nawaz
Basha who has been with me all the time, in joy and even in sadness, and
to my family members Zaheer Ahamed, Farhana, Riyana, niece Fathima
Zehra, and my nephew Azzoo. I would also like to express my gratitude
to Oracle professionals such as Shahbaz, Mohammad Farhan, Syed Jaffar
Hussain, Chinar Aliyev, Michael Seberg, Uwe Hesse, Mohamed Houri,
Adi Narayana, and all my friends along with my favorite authors Larry
Carpenter and Joseph Meeks. I shall not forget to thank my clients and
colleagues who have provided me with invaluable opportunities to expand
my knowledge and shape my career. My heartfelt appreciation goes to the
technical reviewers of this book, Syed Jaffar Hussain, Michael Seberg, and
Joel Perez for the time they have spent reviewing this book, and to Packt
Publishing's team members, Stephanie Moss, Leena Purkait, and Martin
Bell for their support. Thanks to all of them and to their team members for
giving me the opportunity to write this book. Last but not the least, I would
like to say a big thanks to Emre Baransel who gave me the opportunity to
co-author this book with him. His help, along with his direction were strong
assets to write. Thank you Emre.
About the Reviewers
Syed Jaffer Hussain has been an Oracle Database Expert for over 14 years in his 20
years of Information Technology (IT) career. Over the past 14 years of his Oracle journey,
he has been associated with several local and large-scale international banks where he
implemented and managed very complex cluster and non-cluster environments with
hundreds of business critical databases. Recognizing his efforts and contribution towards
the community, Oracle awarded him the prestigious Best DBA of the year award in 2011,
and bestowed him with the Oracle ACE Director status. He has also acquired a number of
industry best-Oracle credentials, such as Oracle Certified Master (OCM), Oracle RAC Expert,
and OCP DBA 8i, 9i, 10g, and 11g in addition to ITIL expertise.
Syed is an active Oracle speaker. He regularly presents technical sessions and webinars
on various Oracle technologies at many Oracle events. You can visit his technical blog at
http://jaffardba.blogspot.com, where he discusses and writes about workarounds/
solutions for the issues confronted by him in his day-to-day activities.
Apart from being a part of the core Technical Review committee for a few Oracle technology-
oriented books, he has also co-authored the books Oracle 11g R1/R2 Real Application Cluster
Essentials and Oracle Expert RAC.
I would like to thank the Almighty and my parents for giving me everything
I needed to become what I am today in life. Also, I owe a very big thanks
to my wife Ayesha and my three champs (Ashfaq, Arfan, and Aahil) for
allowing me to concentrate on my work by sacrificing their family time. Last
but not the least, from the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank every
individual who stood behind me and supported me morally during my ups
and downs and encouraged me all through my life.
Michael Seberg has worked with Oracle since Version 7.3 in programming and
administration. In the spring of 2010, Michael took on data protection for his employer,
designing a complete failover site for Oracle using Data Guard. He has done extensive
testing of switchover, failover, and monitoring of Data Guard. An Oracle generalist, Michael
also works with Fusion Middleware, Forms and Reports, PHP, JSP, and Linux. He also does
development in PL SQL, Object Pascal, and Java. Michael maintains a large personal website
dedicated to Oracle technologies. He is a frequent contributor to the Oracle Technology
Network (OTN) forum.
I would like to thank my wife Andrea for her commitment and patience
with me.
Joel Perez is an expert DBA with over 12 years of specialized experience in several database
areas with special focus on high availability and disaster recovery solutions (RAC, RMAN,
Data Guard, and so on), upgrades, backup and recovery, database hardening, performance
tuning, and others. During these years, Joel has worked as a Senior Consultant with a large
number of companies and clients in various countries namely Venezuela, Panama, Costa
Rica, Dominican Rep., Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras, Ecuador, Mexico,
India, and others. Joel is a frequent speaker at many events such as OTN LAD TOUR. Among
other complementary activities, Joel teaches high availability courses in Oracle University of
several countries in Latin America and publishes articles for OTN LAD. Joel was the first Latin
American to be named OTN Expert in the year 2003. Joel has been an Oracle ACE since 2004
and an Oracle ACE Director since 2012.
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Getting Started 7
What is Data Guard? 7
Standby database 8
Physical standby database 9
Logical standby database 10
Snapshot standby database 10
Oracle Data Guard evolution 11
Version 7.3 – stone age 11
Version 8i – first age 11
Version 9i – middle age 12
Version 10g – new age 12
Version 11g – modern age 13
Oracle Data Guard architecture 14
Data Guard services 15
Redo transport services 15
Apply services 18
Time for action – monitoring Redo Apply 19
SQL Apply (logical standby databases) 23
Role transitions 23
Switchover 24
Failover 24
User interfaces for administering Data Guard 25
SQL*Plus 25
DGMGRL 25
Enterprise Manager 25
Time for action – using interfaces to monitor Data Guard 26
Data Guard background processes 29
