16 Managing Undo

Overview of Automatic Undo Management

Oracle provides a fully automated mechanism, referred to as automatic undo management, for managing undo information and space. With automatic undo management, the database manages undo segments in an undo tablespace. Beginning with Release 11g, automatic undo management is the default mode for a newly installed database. An auto-extending undo tablespace named UNDOTBS1 is automatically created when you create the database with Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA).

An undo tablespace can also be created explicitly. The methods of creating an undo tablespace are explained in "Creating an Undo Tablespace".

When the instance starts, the database automatically selects the first available undo tablespace. If no undo tablespace is available, the instance starts without an undo tablespace and stores undo records in the SYSTEM tablespace. This is not recommended, and an alert message is written to the alert log file to warn that the system is running without an undo tablespace.

If the database contains multiple undo tablespaces, you can optionally specify at startup that you want to use a specific undo tablespace. This is done by setting the UNDO_TABLESPACE initialization parameter, as shown in this example:

UNDO_TABLESPACE = undotbs_01

If the tablespace specified in the initialization parameter does not exist, the STARTUP command fails. The UNDO_TABLESPACE parameter can be used to assign a specific undo tablespace to an instance in an Oracle Real Application Clusters environment.

The database can also run in manual undo management mode. In this mode, undo space is managed through rollback segments, and no undo tablespace is used.

The following is a summary of the initialization parameters for undo management:

When automatic undo management is enabled, if the initialization parameter file contains parameters relating to manual undo management, they are ignored.

About the Undo Retention Period

After a transaction is committed, undo data is no longer needed for rollback or transaction recovery purposes. However, for consistent read purposes, long-running queries may require this old undo information for producing older images of data blocks. Furthermore, the success of several Oracle Flashback features can also depend upon the availability of older undo information. For these reasons, it is desirable to retain the old undo information for as long as possible.

When automatic undo management is enabled, there is always a current undo retention period, which is the minimum amount of time that Oracle Database attempts to retain old undo information before overwriting it. Old (committed) undo information that is older than the current undo retention period is said to be expired and its space is available to be overwritten by new transactions. Old undo information with an age that is less than the current undo retention period is said to be unexpired and is retained for consistent read and Oracle Flashback operations.

Oracle Database automatically tunes the undo retention period based on undo tablespace size and system activity. You can optionally specify a minimum undo retention period (in seconds) by setting the UNDO_RETENTION initialization parameter. The exact impact this parameter on undo retention is as follows:

• The UNDO_RETENTION parameter is ignored for a fixed size undo tablespace. The database always tunes the undo retention period for the best possible retention, based on system activity and undo tablespace size. See "Automatic Tuning of Undo Retention" for more information.

• For an undo tablespace with the AUTOEXTEND option enabled, the database attempts to honor the minimum retention period specified by UNDO_RETENTION. When space is low, instead of overwriting unexpired undo information, the tablespace auto-extends. If the MAXSIZE clause is specified for an auto-extending undo tablespace, when the maximum size is reached, the database may begin to overwrite unexpired undo information. The UNDOTBS1 tablespace that is automatically created by DBCA is auto-extending.

select to_char(begin_time, 'DD-MON-RR HH24:MI') begin_time,
to_char(end_time, 'DD-MON-RR HH24:MI') end_time, tuned_undoretention
from v$undostat order by end_time;

BEGIN_TIME      END_TIME        TUNED_UNDORETENTION
--------------- --------------- -------------------
04-FEB-05 00:01 04-FEB-05 00:11               12100
      ...                                          
07-FEB-05 23:21 07-FEB-05 23:31               86700
07-FEB-05 23:31 07-FEB-05 23:41               86700
07-FEB-05 23:41 07-FEB-05 23:51               86700
07-FEB-05 23:51 07-FEB-05 23:52               86700

576 rows selected.

The Undo Advisor PL/SQL Interface

You can activate the Undo Advisor by creating an undo advisor task through the advisor framework. The following example creates an undo advisor task to evaluate the undo tablespace. The name of the advisor is 'Undo Advisor'. The analysis is based on Automatic Workload Repository snapshots, which you must specify by setting parameters START_SNAPSHOT and END_SNAPSHOT. In the following example, the START_SNAPSHOT is "1" and END_SNAPSHOT is "2".

DECLARE
   tid    NUMBER;
   tname  VARCHAR2(30);
   oid    NUMBER;
BEGIN
   DBMS_ADVISOR.CREATE_TASK('Undo Advisor', tid, tname, 'Undo Advisor Task');
   DBMS_ADVISOR.CREATE_OBJECT(tname, 'UNDO_TBS', null, null, null, 'null', oid);
   DBMS_ADVISOR.SET_TASK_PARAMETER(tname, 'TARGET_OBJECTS', oid);
   DBMS_ADVISOR.SET_TASK_PARAMETER(tname, 'START_SNAPSHOT', 1);
   DBMS_ADVISOR.SET_TASK_PARAMETER(tname, 'END_SNAPSHOT', 2);
   DBMS_ADVISOR.SET_TASK_PARAMETER(tname, 'INSTANCE', 1);
   DBMS_ADVISOR.execute_task(tname);
END;
/

After you have created the advisor task, you can view the output and recommendations in the Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor in Enterprise Manager. This information is also available in the DBA_ADVISOR_* data dictionary views (DBA_ADVISOR_TASKS, DBA_ADVISOR_OBJECTS, DBA_ADVISOR_FINDINGS, DBA_ADVISOR_RECOMMENDATIONS, and so on).

Creating an Undo Tablespace

Although Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) automatically creates an undo tablespace for new installations of Oracle Database Release 11g, there may be occasions when you want to manually create an undo tablespace.

There are two methods of creating an undo tablespace. The first method creates the undo tablespace when the CREATE DATABASE statement is issued. This occurs when you are creating a new database, and the instance is started in automatic undo management mode (UNDO_MANAGEMENT = AUTO). The second method is used with an existing database. It uses the CREATE UNDO TABLESPACE statement.

You cannot create database objects in an undo tablespace. It is reserved for system-managed undo data.

Oracle Database enables you to create a single-file undo tablespace. Single-file, or bigfile, tablespaces are discussed in "Bigfile Tablespaces".

CREATE DATABASE rbdb1
     CONTROLFILE REUSE
     .
     .
     .
     UNDO TABLESPACE undotbs_01 DATAFILE '/u01/oracle/rbdb1/undo0101.dbf';

CREATE UNDO TABLESPACE undotbs_02
     DATAFILE '/u01/oracle/rbdb1/undo0201.dbf' SIZE 2M REUSE AUTOEXTEND ON;

Altering an Undo Tablespace

Undo tablespaces are altered using the ALTER TABLESPACE statement. However, since most aspects of undo tablespaces are system managed, you need only be concerned with the following actions:

• Adding a data file

• Renaming a data file

• Bringing a data file online or taking it offline

• Beginning or ending an open backup on a data file

• Enabling and disabling undo retention guarantee

These are also the only attributes you are permitted to alter.

If an undo tablespace runs out of space, or you want to prevent it from doing so, you can add more files to it or resize existing data files.

The following example adds another data file to undo tablespace undotbs_01:

ALTER TABLESPACE undotbs_01
     ADD DATAFILE '/u01/oracle/rbdb1/undo0102.dbf' AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 1M 
         MAXSIZE UNLIMITED;

You can use the ALTER DATABASE...DATAFILE statement to resize or extend a data file.

Dropping an Undo Tablespace

Use the DROP TABLESPACE statement to drop an undo tablespace. The following example drops the undo tablespace undotbs_01:

DROP TABLESPACE undotbs_01;

An undo tablespace can only be dropped if it is not currently used by any instance. If the undo tablespace contains any outstanding transactions (for example, a transaction died but has not yet been recovered), the DROP TABLESPACE statement fails. However, since DROP TABLESPACE drops an undo tablespace even if it contains unexpired undo information (within retention period), you must be careful not to drop an undo tablespace if undo information is needed by some existing queries.

DROP TABLESPACE for undo tablespaces behaves like DROP TABLESPACE...INCLUDING CONTENTS. All contents of the undo tablespace are removed.

Switching Undo Tablespaces

You can switch from using one undo tablespace to another. Because the UNDO_TABLESPACE initialization parameter is a dynamic parameter, the ALTER SYSTEM SET statement can be used to assign a new undo tablespace.

The following statement switches to a new undo tablespace:

ALTER SYSTEM SET UNDO_TABLESPACE = undotbs_02;

Assuming undotbs_01 is the current undo tablespace, after this command successfully executes, the instance uses undotbs_02 in place of undotbs_01 as its undo tablespace.

If any of the following conditions exist for the tablespace being switched to, an error is reported and no switching occurs:

• The tablespace does not exist

• The tablespace is not an undo tablespace

• The tablespace is already being used by another instance (in an Oracle RAC environment only)

The database is online while the switch operation is performed, and user transactions can be executed while this command is being executed. When the switch operation completes successfully, all transactions started after the switch operation began are assigned to transaction tables in the new undo tablespace.

The switch operation does not wait for transactions in the old undo tablespace to commit. If there are any pending transactions in the old undo tablespace, the old undo tablespace enters into a PENDING OFFLINE mode (status). In this mode, existing transactions can continue to execute, but undo records for new user transactions cannot be stored in this undo tablespace.

An undo tablespace can exist in this PENDING OFFLINE mode, even after the switch operation completes successfully. A PENDING OFFLINE undo tablespace cannot be used by another instance, nor can it be dropped. Eventually, after all active transactions have committed, the undo tablespace automatically goes from the PENDING OFFLINE mode to the OFFLINE mode. From then on, the undo tablespace is available for other instances (in an Oracle Real Application Cluster environment).

If the parameter value for UNDO TABLESPACE is set to '' (two single quotes), then the current undo tablespace is switched out and the next available undo tablespace is switched in. Use this statement with care because there may be no undo tablespace available.

The following example unassigns the current undo tablespace:

ALTER SYSTEM SET UNDO_TABLESPACE = '';

Establishing User Quotas for Undo Space

The Oracle Database Resource Manager can be used to establish user quotas for undo space. The Database Resource Manager directive UNDO_POOL allows DBAs to limit the amount of undo space consumed by a group of users (resource consumer group).

You can specify an undo pool for each consumer group. An undo pool controls the amount of total undo that can be generated by a consumer group. When the total undo generated by a consumer group exceeds its undo limit, the current UPDATE transaction generating the undo is terminated. No other members of the consumer group can perform further updates until undo space is freed from the pool.

When no UNDO_POOL directive is explicitly defined, users are allowed unlimited undo space.

Managing Space Threshold Alerts for the Undo Tablespace

Oracle Database also provides proactive help in managing tablespace disk space use by alerting you when tablespaces run low on available space. See "Managing Tablespace Alerts" for information on how to set alert thresholds for the undo tablespace.

In addition to the proactive undo space alerts, Oracle Database also provides alerts if your system has long-running queries that cause SNAPSHOT TOO OLD errors. To prevent excessive alerts, the long query alert is issued at most once every 24 hours. When the alert is generated, you can check the Undo Advisor Page of Enterprise Manager to get more information about the undo tablespace.