This post is part of a blog series.
Most people don’t know that, until recently, Data Guard broker relied on internal C routines to execute operations inside the database.
Now, more and more of these routines have moved into “fixed packages”: PL/SQL packages embedded directly in the Oracle binary. These packages are accessible even when databases are mounted (but not necessarily open).
The broker now uses these fixed packages, and so do other components outside the “dgmgrl” tool. With Oracle 26ai, we are exposing these internal PL/SQL functions through the wrapper package DBMS_DG.
Starting with Oracle 26ai, you can use over 30 PL/SQL functions (all documented in the Data Guard Broker Administration Guide) to programmatically configure and manage Data Guard broker configurations.
This change makes automation more robust: instead of shell commands like AWK or grep, you can rely on programmatic PL/SQL APIs. This should simplify integration with automation tools and CI/CD pipelines.
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