Oracle Data Guard
The software which Oracle Corporation markets as Oracle Data Guard forms an extension to the Oracle RDBMS. It aids in establishing and maintaining secondary "standby databases" as alternative/supplementary repositories to production "primary databases".
Oracle Corporation provides both GUI and command-line tools for managing Data Guard configurations.
With appropriately set-up Data Guard operations, DBAs can facilitate failovers or switchovers to alternative hosts in the same or alternative locations.
Configurations
Physical standby (Redo Apply)
A Physical standby database replicates the exact contents of its primary database across the Oracle Net network layer. While the physical storage locations can be different, the data in the database will be exactly the same as the primary database. It can function either in managed Recovery mode or in read-only mode, but not in both modes at the same time unless the databases are at Oracle Database 11.1 or higher and the Active Data Guard option is licensed
Logical standby (SQL Apply
Logical standby databases convert the redo generated at the Primary database into data and SQL and then re-apply those SQL transactions on the Logical standby, thus physical structures and organization will be different from the Primary database. Users can read from logical standby databases while the changes are being applied and, if the GUARD is set to STANDBY (ALTER DATABASE GUARD STANDBY;), write to tables in the Logical standby database that are not being maintained by SQL Apply.
Unfortunately there are a number of unsupported objects (ie: tables or sequences owned by SYS, tables that use table compression, tables that underlie a materialized view or Global temporary tables (GTTs)) and unsupported data types (ie: Datatypes BFILE, ROWID, and UROWID, user-defined TYPEs, Multimedia data types like Oracle Spatial, ORDDICOM, and Oracle Text Collections (e.g. nested tables, VARRAYs), SecureFile LOBs, OBJECT RELATIONAL XMLTypes and BINARY XML).[2] Physical standby may be appropriate in such a case.
Active Data Guard
The "Oracle Active Data Guard" option, an extra-cost facility,[3] extends Oracle Data Guard physical standby functionality in Oracle 11g configurations. It allows read-only access on the standby node at the same time as archiving transactions from the primary node.[4]
Operation
LNS (log-write network-server) and ARCH (archiver) processes running on the primary database select archived redo logs and send them to the standby database,[5] where the RFS (remote file server) background process within the Oracle instance performs the task of receiving archived redo-logs originating from the primary database.
Alternatively, a supplementary mechanism may transfer the archived redo logs. On the standby database a Fetch Archive Log (FAL) client monitors for gaps in the sequence of received logs. If it finds a gap, it may invoke one or more Fetch Archive Log (FAL) servers to run on the primary database to forward the missing item(s).[6]
Once the archived redo logs have arrived, other processes (such as an ARCH (Archiver process), an MRP (Managed Recovery Process), and/or an LSP (Logical Standby Process)) may set about applying the log contents to the standby database.
Advantages
Data Guard provides high availability for a database system. It can also reduce the human intervention required to switch between databases at disaster-recovery ("failover") or upgrade/maintenance ("switchover") time.
Disadvantages
Data Guard is an added cost option bundled within "Enterprise Edition" of the Oracle RDBMS and allows purely read-only access..
Substantial costs savings are possible using Oracle Standard Edition (SE) or Oracle Standard Edition One (SE1) with use of a third-party product such as SharePlex for Oracle Database Replication to provide high availability for a database system
Installing Oracle 10g database software
- Insert Oracle CD , the autorun window opens automatically. If you are installing from network or hard disk, click setup.exe in the installation folder.
- The Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) will run and display the Select Installation Method Window.
- Choose Basic Installation:
Select this option to quickly install Oracle Database 10g. This method requires minimal user input. It installs the software and optionally creates a general-purpose database based on the information you provide.
For basic installation, you specify the following:
Oracle Home Location — Enter the directory in which to install the Oracle Database 10g software. You must specify a new Oracle home directory for each new installation of Oracle Database 10g. Use the default value, which is :
c:\oracle\product\10.2.0\db_1
Installation Type — Select Enterprise Edition :
If you have limited space, select standard edition. Personal edition installs the same software as the Enterprise Edition, but supports only a single-user development and deployment environment.
Create Starter Database — Check this box to create a database during installation. Oracle recommends that you create a starter database for first Create Starter Database — time installations. Choose a Global Database Name, like cs157b, or just use the default value.
Type a password. Don’t lose this password, since you will need it to connect to the database server.
Click next
The Product-Specific Prerequisite Checks window appears: Click next
A summary screen appears showing information such as your global settings, space requirements and the new products to be installed. Click Install to start the installation.. The Install window appears showing installation progress. At the end of the installation phase, the Configuration Assistants window appears. This window lists the configuration assistants that are started automatically.
If you are creating a database, then the Database Configuration Assistant starts automatically in a separate window. At the end of database creation, you are prompted to unlock user accounts to make the accounts accessible. The SYS and SYSTEM accounts are already unlocked. Click OK to bypass password management.
Note: Oracle 10g still keeps scott / tiger username and password (UID=scott, PWD=tiger) from the old version of oracle. In the old version of oracle, scott/tiger user ID is available by default, but not in oracle 10g. If you want to use scott /tiger account, you must unlock it by clicking “Password Management” at the last window.
Password Management window will appear like the one shown below. Find the user name “Scott” and uncheck the “Lock Account?” column for the user name.
Your installation and database creation is now complete. The End of Installation window displays several important URLs, one of which is for Enterprise Manager.
Oracle Exadata
Oracle Exadata is a database appliance with support for both OLTP and OLAP workloads. It was initially designed in collaboration between Oracle Corporation and Hewlett Packard where Oracle designed the database, operating system and storage software whereas HP designed the hardware for it. With Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems
