Oracle Data Guard has improved functionality over last releases, which is hitting the point home that Oracle is serious about it’s view of making administration so easy that a child can handle it.
Hmm….. Mediocre DBA’s better start looking for another professional line.
In 10g release 2, Oracle data guard broker new features are:
· Fast-Start Failover
DG broker can automatically fail over to a previously chosen standby database in the event of a loss of primary database. This would not require any manual steps. Moreover Oracle 10gR2 claims that the former primary database is automatically re-instated as a standby database in the new broker configuration when a connection to it is re-established.
I would test this rigorsly in my environment. Database is never a standalone in any production environment and lots of other connections and application requirements would be involved in case of an automatic failover. I would seek answers more towards the applications and environment requirements before using this feature.
· Re-instatement of the primary database to a standby database after a failover
Oracle claims that the data guard observer can reinstate the former primary database as a standby database. Oracle documentation states “Reinstatement restores high availability to the broker configuration so that, in the event of a failure of the new primary database, another fast-start failover can occur….”
Currently, this feature has too many limitations making it highly unusable in actual production environment. In Oracle 11g this feature seems to have enhanced.
· Data Guard enhancements in OEM grid control
Oracle 10g Data Guard broker features are only available in Enterprise Manager grid Control. So, one must install OEM grid control to ba able to access the data guard functionality.
Ø Compression of backups during standby creation
Ø Support for flash recovery area for physical standby databases
Ø Support of standby databases in an Oracle Managed Files (OMF) or Automatic
Storage Management (ASM) configuration
Ø New and improved apply statistics
Ø Status alerts for non-broker configurations
Ø Test redo generator
