ctx_ddl.sync_index question

Redhat linux

2 cpu

12 GB ram

COTS app: kana  

Kana is telling our developer that we need to run

begin

ctx_ddl.sync_index('kc_ctx_rawtext', '12M'); end;

to resync the text index.

The index is 2.5GB and there are 3 million records in ctx_user_pending. Of course, there is no dev/test or anything and they want to run it straight on prod. Why the app doesn't have a job predefined to do this I don't know. I'm trying to get a handle on what this will actually do under the covers. This will be run off peak load but is it so resource intensive that the system will essentially lock (from the users viewpoint) or any idea of how long this type of thing would take.

I've told them we will just have to go with it as again we have no way of testing beforehand.  

Thanks

Mike      

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