Re: Automated standby - swapping roles

seismo_at_elvis.com (B. Jones) wrote in message news:<e6ca440a.0407090629.350fa54b_at_posting.google.com>...
> Hey guys - gotta question.
> I have a few sites on 8i utilizing automated standby.
> We have a script on the standby server running in cron that makes a
> connection every minute to the primary database. If the connection
> fails, it brings the standby server into production mode with ALTER
> DATABASE ACTIVATE STANDBY DATABASE. According to Oracle/Lawrence To's

Sounds like a false positive due to transient network glitch waiting to happen. You might want to put a human, or at least some retries and help cries, into that loop.

> "Graceful Switchover and Switchback," that command will perform an
> implicit open resetlogs, hence will not allow the procedures outlined
> there.
> Additionally, as far as I could tell, there appeared to be downtime in
> the procedures outlined in that strategy.
> Here's what I need to do.
> Let's say server1 houses my primary database and server2 houses my
> standby.
> If server1 crashes, server2 will activate and become the production
> database.
> I would then need to rebuild server1 and make it the standby with no
> downtime to server2.
> Is this going to be possible?

No. IIRC, that doc minimizes the downtime, but doesn't eliminate it, since you have to shutdown and do stuff. You probably need something more robust than 8i standby, or need to modify your SLA to the minimum downtime.

> I was thinking that I could just export the database from server2 to
> server1, build my standby controlfile from server2 and ftp to server1.
> Will this work at all?

No. In order to propagate a standby you must have no interruptions in the system change numbers. You'll never get sync'd with export involved. How long does your backup take? How long to get it shipped to the other machine?

> Ideas appreciated.

As the racers say, speed=$, how fast do you want to go?

jg

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