Using Oracle Replication To Move A New Production Database

We have been working Oracle Support to resolve an database problem that causes our application to present the "Do You Want To Save" message after an update 3 or more times to the end user before you can navigate to the next record or another screen. Oracle has been assisting us with this problem since June and resolution has not been found. This problem began after we experience a major crash in May that resulted in our production database being rebuilt by the DBA's at our hosting facility.

A decision has been made by management to move the production data to a new database before year end. Since we are a credit card processing company, the database is available 24 by 7. We have created test database on the production server and moved the data over via export/import to see if we could duplicate the problem. The problem did not manifest itself.

At this point, management would like to find the fastest way to rebuild 100GB database. It is important that we keep downtime less than 6 hours. Based on the research I have done so far, replication may be our best option. A new database can be created and offline instatiantions can be made of all the schema's required for the application. It is not our intention to replicate all of our tables, just the dynamic ones. Once the new database has completed the instantiation and synced with production, we can begin testing the new database. After testing successfully completes, we can schedule a cutover date.

From what I have read, the table names created in the new production database will be the same as the current database(no MV$<table_name>).

Once the we have successfully tested the new database, what will need to do to turn off replication? We do not plan to use replication with the new database instance. Standby database will be set up to satisfy our disaster recovery needs. Since the data is only going ONE WAY, is it safe to assume that there will not be any conflicts?

Are there any gotcha's that we should be aware of? If there is a better approach to this issue, please let me know. Received on Tue Nov 04 2003 - 16:42:53 CST