4 Creating a Logical Standby Database

4.1.1 Determine Support for Data Types and Storage Attributes for Tables

Before setting up a logical standby database, ensure the logical standby database can maintain the data types and tables in your primary database. See Appendix C for a complete list of data type and storage type considerations.

4.1.2 Ensure Table Rows in the Primary Database Can Be Uniquely Identified

The physical organization in a logical standby database is different from that of the primary database, even though the logical standby database is created from a backup copy of the primary database. Thus, ROWIDs contained in the redo records generated by the primary database cannot be used to identify the corresponding row in the logical standby database.

Oracle uses primary-key or unique-constraint/index supplemental logging to logically identify a modified row in the logical standby database. When database-wide primary-key and unique-constraint/index supplemental logging is enabled, each UPDATE statement also writes the column values necessary in the redo log to uniquely identify the modified row in the logical standby database.

• If a table has a primary key defined, then the primary key is logged along with the modified columns as part of the UPDATE statement to identify the modified row.

• In the absence of a primary key, the shortest nonnull unique-constraint/index is logged along with the modified columns as part of the UPDATE statement to identify the modified row.

• In the absence of both a primary key and a nonnull unique constraint/index, all columns of bounded size are logged as part of the UPDATE statement to identify the modified row. In other words, all columns except those with the following types are logged: LONG, LOB, LONG RAW, object type, and collections.

Oracle recommends that you add a primary key or a nonnull unique index to tables in the primary database, whenever possible, to ensure that SQL Apply can efficiently apply redo data updates to the logical standby database.

Perform the following steps to ensure SQL Apply can uniquely identify rows of each table being replicated in the logical standby database.

Step 1   Find tables without unique logical identifier in the primary database.

Query the DBA_LOGSTDBY_NOT_UNIQUE view to display a list of tables that SQL Apply may not be able to uniquely identify. For example:

SQL> SELECT OWNER, TABLE_NAME FROM DBA_LOGSTDBY_NOT_UNIQUE
  2> WHERE (OWNER, TABLE_NAME) NOT IN 
  3> (SELECT DISTINCT OWNER, TABLE_NAME FROM DBA_LOGSTDBY_UNSUPPORTED) 
  4> AND BAD_COLLUMN = 'Y'

Step 2   Add a disabled primary-key RELY constraint.

If your application ensures the rows in a table are unique, you can create a disabled primary key RELY constraint on the table. This avoids the overhead of maintaining a primary key on the primary database.

To create a disabled RELY constraint on a primary database table, use the ALTER TABLE statement with a RELY DISABLE clause. The following example creates a disabled RELY constraint on a table named mytab, for which rows can be uniquely identified using the id and name columns:

SQL> ALTER TABLE mytab ADD PRIMARY KEY (id, name) RELY DISABLE;

When you specify the RELY constraint, the system will assume that rows are unique. Because you are telling the system to rely on the information, but are not validating it on every modification done to the table, you must be careful to select columns for the disabled RELY constraint that will uniquely identify each row in the table. If such uniqueness is not present, then SQL Apply will not correctly maintain the table.

To improve the performance of SQL Apply, add a unique-constraint/index to the columns to identify the row on the logical standby database. Failure to do so results in full table scans during UPDATE or DELETE statements carried out on the table by SQL Apply.

4.2.1 Create a Physical Standby Database

You create a logical standby database by first creating a physical standby database and then transitioning it to a logical standby database. Follow the instructions in Chapter 3, "Creating a Physical Standby Database" to create a physical standby database.

4.2.2 Stop Redo Apply on the Physical Standby Database

You can run Redo Apply on the new physical standby database for any length of time before converting it to a logical standby database. However, before converting to a logical standby database, stop Redo Apply on the physical standby database. Stopping Redo Apply is necessary to avoid applying changes past the redo that contains the LogMiner dictionary (described in Section 4.2.3.2, "Build a Dictionary in the Redo Data").

To stop Redo Apply, issue the following statement on the physical standby database. If the database is a RAC database comprised of multiple instances, then you must first stop all RAC instances except one before issuing this statement:

SQL> ALTER DATABASE RECOVER MANAGED STANDBY DATABASE CANCEL;

4.2.3 Prepare the Primary Database to Support a Logical Standby Database

This section contains the following topics:

• Prepare the Primary Database for Role Transitions

• Build a Dictionary in the Redo Data

LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_3=
 'LOCATION=/arch2/chicago/
  VALID_FOR=(STANDBY_LOGFILES,STANDBY_ROLE) 
  DB_UNIQUE_NAME=chicago'
LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_STATE_3=ENABLE

SQL> EXECUTE DBMS_LOGSTDBY.BUILD;

4.2.4 Transition to a Logical Standby Database

This section describes how to prepare the physical standby database to transition to a logical standby database. It contains the following topics:

• Convert to a Logical Standby Database

• Create a New Password File

• Adjust Initialization Parameters for the Logical Standby Database

SQL> ALTER DATABASE RECOVER TO LOGICAL STANDBY db_name;

SQL> SHUTDOWN;
SQL> STARTUP MOUNT;

LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_1=
  'LOCATION=/arch1/boston/
   VALID_FOR=(ONLINE_LOGFILES,ALL_ROLES)
   DB_UNIQUE_NAME=boston'
LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_2=
  'SERVICE=chicago LGWR ASYNC
   VALID_FOR=(ONLINE_LOGFILES,PRIMARY_ROLE)
   DB_UNIQUE_NAME=chicago'
LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_3=
  'LOCATION=/arch2/boston/
   VALID_FOR=(STANDBY_LOGFILES,STANDBY_ROLE)
   DB_UNIQUE_NAME=boston'
LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_STATE_1=ENABLE
LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_STATE_2=ENABLE
LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_STATE_3=ENABLE

4.2.5 Open the Logical Standby Database

The new database is logically the same as your primary database, but it is transactionally inconsistent with the primary database, and thus incompatible for recovery operations.

To open the new logical standby database, you must open it with the RESETLOGS option by issuing the following statement:

SQL> ALTER DATABASE OPEN RESETLOGS;

Because this is the first time the database is being opened, the database's global name is adjusted automatically to match the new DB_NAME initialization parameter.

Issue the following statement to begin applying redo data to the logical standby database. For example:

SQL>  ALTER DATABASE START LOGICAL STANDBY APPLY IMMEDIATE;

4.2.6 Verify the Logical Standby Database Is Performing Properly

See the following sections for help verifying that the logical standby database is performing properly:

• Section 5.9.1, "Monitoring Log File Archival Information"

• Section 6.4.3, "Monitoring SQL Apply on Logical Standby Databases"

• Chapter 9, "Managing a Logical Standby Database"