Re: Archive Logs

On Tue, 11 Mar 2003 15:45:26 +0100, Christoph Bielitza wrote:

> Hi,
> I have a question. Is it correct, that I am not able to use
> archive logs with the Oracle 8.1.7 standard edition ?
> I tried to use the following parameters in the init.ora-file:
>
> log_archive_start = true
> log_archive_dest = "location=e:\redos"
> log_archive_format = %T%TS%S.ARC
>
> but if I restart the database nothing happens.

And nothing happens because, probably, you've missed the vital step: put your database into archive log mode. Shutdown immediate, startup mount, and type alter database archivelog; ... followed by alter database open. That should do the trick.

As to your original question, the Standard Edition can generate archive logs just fine. What you can't do in the standard edition is take advantage of the multiple log_archive_dest_n parameters, which take a bazillion and one arguments, not just a directory setting. They are used to do things like archive to a remote location or to a standy database; re-open archive destinations which have failed to be contacted after a period of time; get LGWR to send redo to remote locations synchronously (in 9i); support the No Data Loss/No Data Divergence data guard standby-on-steroids sort of arrangement you can have in 9i.

All of that stuff is obviously chock full of exciting functionality: for which you need the (rather more costly) Enterprise Edition.

But bog-standard archiving to two local destinations by ARCH in the Standard Edition... no problem.

By the way, you may have trouble with double quotes (or you may not: I think Windows will be fine with them, but don't try the same trick on a Unix box. Or it may be the other way round!) around your destination.

And your archive format parameter is set very oddly. %s and %t include the Log Sequence Number and Thread Number in the file name. %S and %T do the same thing, but with leading zeroes used to pad small numbers to be the same length as larger ones (for sorting purposes).

Given that until you get into RAC or Parallel Server (which you can't because they require the Enterprise Edition, too) Thread Number is always and ever only "1", it seems a bit of a waste to include it in your archive format twice. Likewise, it seems a tad daft to include the sequence number twice. If I read your proposal correctly, you're going to end up with logfiles called something like 000100010000016500000165.ARC Which isn't very workable!

I suggest you set it to "arch%s.rdo" (or arch%S.rdo) instead.

Regards
HJR
>
> Any idea ?
>
> Thanks a lot
> Bye
> Christoph
Received on Tue Mar 11 2003 - 13:42:18 CST