9i Change Data Capture

Can anyone share any experiences using Change Data Capture is a production system? A client I'm working for is considering how it can be used to replace their existing custom processes. The changes are ultimately used to synchronize replicate systems, the data warehouse and data marts. In the first hour of working with it I ran into the following problems that concern me:

> exec dbms_logmnr_cdc_publish.drop_subscriber_view(1, 'test', 'cdc_test');
*
ERROR at line 1:

ORA-29531: no method dropSubscriptionView in class oracle/CDC/PublishApi 
ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_CDC_PUBLISH", line 0 
ORA-06512: at line 1 

Did they forget to implement it or remove the package definition (and documentation)? Is there an update I'm missing?

> exec dbms_logmnr_cdc_subscribe.drop_subscription(1);
*
ERROR at line 1:

ORA-31430: change view exists 
ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_CDC_SUBSCRIBE", line 0 
ORA-06512: at line 1 

However, no change view actually exists. I can't figure out where it's looking to think one does.

Frankly, the whole thing seems difficult to work with and prone to problems. My biggest concern is that you don't appear to have much control over the change views. You can't name them yourself (have to synonym them I guess for pl/sql processes). You can't specify particular windows you want to view (always have to take a view of everything up to current time). You can't get a view on a future window without indicating it's ok to purge the previous window. Ok, I guess you could create a whole new subscription to get around that one but that's a real pain.

Is this feature ready for actual production use or should we hold off a while?

Oracle9i Enterprise Edition Release 9.0.1.3.0 - Production With the Partitioning option
JServer Release 9.0.1.3.0 - Production

Thanks,
Richard Received on Tue Jun 11 2002 - 15:24:15 CDT