Recently my customer patched its 12.1.0.2 databases with the Bundle Patch 170718 on the new servers (half of the customer’s environment). The old servers are still on 161018 Bundle Patch.
We realized that we could not move anymore the databases from the old servers to the new ones because the duplicate from active database was failing with this error:
Oracle 12.2 had introduced incompatibility with previous releases in remote file transfer via SQL*Net. At least this is what it seems. According to Oracle, this is due to a bugfix present in Oracle 12.2
Now, the bundle patch that we installed on BP 170718 contains the same bugfix (Patch for bug 18633374).
So, the incompatibility happens now between databases of the same “Major Release” (12.1.0.2).
There are two possible workarounds:
Apply the same patch level on both sides (BP170718 in my case)
Apply just the patch 18633374 on top of your current PSU/DBBP (a merge might be necessary).
We used the second approach and now we can setup Data Guard again to move our databases without downtime:
In a few days I will give a presentation at UKOUG Tech15 about Global Data Services, it will be the first time that I present this session.
I usually like to give the link to the material to my audience, so here we go:
Credits
I have to give special credits to my colleague Robert Bialek. I’ve got a late confirmation for this session and my slide deck was not ready at all, so I have used a big part of his original work. Most of the content included in the slides has been created by Robert, not me. (Thank you for your help! :-))
After almost 1 year, I’ve decided to publish these articles on my Slideshare account. You may have already seen them in the IOUG Collaborate 14 conference content or in the SOUG Newsletter 2014/4. Nothing really new, but I hope you’ll still enjoy them.
Ok, if you’re reading this post, you may want to read also the previous one that explains something more about the problem.
Briefly said, if you have a CDB running on ASM in a MAA architecture and you do not have Active Data Guard, when you clone a PDB you have to “copy” the datafiles somehow on the standby. The only solution offered by Oracle (in a MOS Note, not in the documentation) is to restore the PDB from the primary to the standby site, thus transferring it over the network. But if you have a huge PDB this is a bad solution because it impacts your network connectivity. (Note: ending up with a huge PDB IMHO can only be caused by bad consolidation. I do not recommend to consolidate huge databases on Multitenant).
So I’ve worked out another solution, that still has many defects and is almost not viable, but it’s technically interesting because it permits to discover a little more about Multitenant and Data Guard.
The three options
At the primary site, the process is always the same: Oracle copies the datafiles of the source, and it modifies the headers so that they can be used by the new PDB (so it changes CON_ID, DBID, FILE#, and so on).
On the standby site, by opposite, it changes depending on the option you choose:
Option 1: Active Data Guard
If you have ADG, the ADG itself will take care of copying the datafile on the standby site, from the source standby pdb to the destination standby pdb. Once the copy is done, the MRP0 will continue the recovery. The modification of the header block of the destination PDB is done by the MRP0 immediately after the copy (at least this is what I understand).
Option 2: No Active Data Guard, but STANDBYS=none
In this case, the copy on the standby site doesn’t happen, and the recovery process just add the entry of the new datafiles in the controlfile, with status OFFLINE and name UNKNOWNxxx. However, the source file cannot be copied anymore, because the MRP0 process will expect to have a copy of the destination datafile, not the source datafile. Also, any tentative of restore of the datafile 28 (in this example) will give an error because it does not belong to the destination PDB. So the only chance is to restore the destination PDB from the primary.
Option 3: No Active Data Guard, no STANDBYS=none
This is the case that I want to explain actually. Without the flag STANDBYS=none, the MRP0 process will expect to change the header of the new datafile, but because the file does not exist yet, the recovery process dies.
We can then copy it manually from the source standby pdb, and restart the recovery process, that will change the header. This process needs to be repeated for each datafile. (that’s why it’s not a viable solution, right now).
We need to fix the datafiles one by one, but most of the steps can be done once for all the datafiles.
Copy the source PDB from the standby
What do we need to do? Well, the recovery process is stopped, so we can safely copy the datafiles of the source PDB from the standby site because they have not moved yet. (meanwhile, we can put the primary source PDB back in read-write mode).
Now there’s the interesting part: we need to assign the datafile copies of the maaz PDB to LUDO.
Sadly, the OMF will create the copies on the bad location (it’s a copy, to they are created on the same location as the source PDB).
We cannot try to uncatalog and recatalog the copies, because they will ALWAYS be affected to the source PDB. Neither we can use RMAN because it will never associate the datafile copies to the new PDB. We need to rename the files manually.
The recovery process will:
– change the new datafile by modifying the header for the new PDB
– create the entry for the second datafile in the controlfile
– crash again because the datafile is missing
This time all the datafiles have been copied (no user datafile for this example) and the recovery process will continue!! 🙂 so we can hit ^C and start it in background.
In my #OOW14 presentation about MAA and Multitenant, more precisely at slide #59, “PDB Creation from other PDB without ADG*”, I list a few commands that you can use to achieve a “correct” Pluggable Database clone in case you’re not using Active Data Guard.
What’s the problem with cloning a PDB in a MAA environment without ADG? If you’ve attended my session you should know the answer…
If you plan to create a PDB as a clone from a different PDB, then copy the data files that belong to the source PDB over to the standby database. (This step is not necessary in an Active Data Guard environment because the data files are copied automatically when the PDB is created on the standby database.)
But because there are good possibilities (99%?) that in a MAA environment you’re using ASM, this step is not so simple: you cannot copy the datafiles exactly where you want, it’s OMF, and the recovery process expects the files to be where the controlfile says they should be.
So, if you clone the PDB, the recovery process on the standby doesn’t find the datafiles at the correct location, thus the recovery process will stop and will not start until you fix manually. That’s why Oracle has implemented the new syntax “STANDBYS=NONE” that disables the recovery on the standby for a specific PDB: it lets you disable the recovery temporarily while the recovery process continues to apply logs on the remaining PDBs. (Note, however, that this feature is not intended as a generic solution for having PDBs not replicated. The recommended solution in this case is having two distinct CDBs, one protected by DG, the other not).
With ADG, when you clone the PDB on the primary, on the standby the ADG takes care of the following steps, no matter if on ASM or FS:
recover up to the point where the file# is registered in the controlfile
copy the datafiles from the source DB ON THE STANDBY DATABASE (so no copy over the network)
rename the datafile in the controlfile
continue with the recovery
If you don’t have ADG, and you’re on ASM, Oracle documentation says nothing with enough detail to let you solve the problem. So in August I’ve worked out the “easy” solution that I’ve also included in my slides (#59 and #60):
SQL> create pluggable database DEST from SRC standbys=none;
RMAN> backup as copy pluggable database DEST format ‘/tmp/dest%f.dbf’;
$ scp /tmp/dest*.dbf remote:/tmp
RMAN> catalog start with ‘/tmp/dest’
RMAN> set newnamefor pluggable database DEST to new;
RMAN> restore pluggable database DEST;
RMAN> switch pluggable database DEST to copy;
DGMGRL> edit database ‘STBY’ set state=’APPLY-OFF’;
SQL> Alter pluggable database DEST enable recovery;
DGMGRL> edit database ‘STBY’ set state=’APPLY-ON’;
Once at #OOW14, after endless conversations at the Demo Grounds, I’ve discovered that Oracle has worked out the very same solution requiring network transfer and that it has been documented in a new note.
Making Use of the STANDBYS=NONE Feature with Oracle Multitenant (Doc ID 1916648.1)
This note is very informative and I recommend to read it carefully!
What changes (better) in comparison with my first solution, is that Oracle suggests to use the new feature “restore from service”:
Oracle PL/SQL
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RMAN>run{
2>setnewnameforpluggabledatabaseDESTtonew;
3>restorepluggabledatabaseDESTfromserviceprim;
4>switchdatafileall;
5>}
I’ve questioned the developers at the Demo Grounds about the necessity to use network transfer (I had the chance to speak directly with the developer who has written this piece of code!! :-)) and they said that they had worked out only this solution. So, if you have a huge PDB to clone, the network transfer from the primary to standby may impact severely your Data Guard environment and/or your whole infrastructure, for the time of the transfer.
Of course, I have a complex, undocumented solution, I hope I will find the time to document it, so stay tuned if you’re curious! 🙂
DISCLAIMER: I’ve got this information by chatting with Oracle developers at the Demo Grounds. The functionality is not documented yet and Oracle may change it at its sole discretion. Please refer to the documentation if/when it will be updated 😉
Here you can find the material related to my session at Oracle Open World 2014. I’m sorry I’m late in publishing them, but I challenge you to find spare time during Oracle Open World! It’s the busiest week of the year! (Hard Work, Hard Play)
select inst_id,con_id,name,open_mode from gv\$pdbswhere con_id!=2order by con_id,inst_id;
exit
EOF
pause"please connect to the RW service"
pause"next... dgmgrl status and validate"
clear
echos"Validate Standby database"
dgmgrl<<EOF
connect sys/racattack
show configuration;
validate database'CDBGVA';
exit
EOF
pause"next... switchover to CDBGVA"
clear
echos"Switchover to CDBGVA! (it takes a while)"
dgmgrl<<EOF
connect sys/racattack
switchover to'CDBGVA';
exit
EOF
There’s one slide describing the procedure for cloning one PDB using the standbys clause. Oracle has released a Note while I was preparing my slides (one month ago) and I wasn’t aware of it, so you may also checkout this note on MOS:
Making Use of the STANDBYS=NONE Feature with Oracle Multitenant (Doc ID 1916648.1)
echo"#### IT MAY TAKE SOME MINUTES BEFORE EVERYTHING START WORKING ####"
read-p""
dgmgrl-echosys/manager<<EOF
show configuration
EOF
For the demo I’ve used 5 machines running 3 database instances and 2 Far Sync instances. I cannot provide the documentation for creating the demo environment, but the scripts may be useful to understand how the demo works.
I feel the strong need to blog abut this very recent problem because I’ve spent a lot of time debugging it… especially because there’s no information about this error on the MOS.
Introduction
For a lab, I have prepared two RAC Container databases in physical stand-by.
Real-time query is configured (real-time apply, standby in read-only mode).
But, on the standby database, the PDB somehow was existing.
Oracle PL/SQL
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16:20:58SYS@CDBGVA_1>selectnamefromv$pdbs;
NAME
------------------------------
PDB$SEED
MAAZ
LUDO
I’ve tried to play a little, and finally decided to disable the recovery for the PDB (new in 12.1.0.2).
But to disable the recovery I was needing to connect to the PDB, but the PDB was somehow “inexistent”:
Then I’ve shutted down the standby, but one instance hung and I’ve needed to do a shutdown abort (I don’t know if it was related with my original problem..)
So I’ve RESTARTED the recovery for a few seconds, and because the PDB had the recovery disabled, the recovery process has added the datafiles and set them offline.
This enviromnent is relying on Windows OS. Don’t know how this could be called “availability” but here we are. I revisited my scripts in a quick and very dirty way. Please consider that I did copy and paste to check the alignment once per thread, but it should be improved with some kind of iteration to check each thread in a more structured fashion.
printf("\n\n%-10d blocks gap in TRANSMISSION\n",$rfsblockgap1+$rfsblockgap2);
printf("%-10d blocks gap in APPLY (MRP0)\n",$mrpblockgap);
$stbyh->disconnect;
$prodh->disconnect;
Please foreward me every improvement you implement over my code: it would be nice to post it here.
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