Standby with a different ORACLE_SID

[Peter Houghton]

Hi All,

I have a situation where I want to be able to create a new database based on an existing one using dbvisit standby. In my testing I have successfully built a second standby database and dbvisit was keeping it in sync with the primary - no problem. I then activated this standby (on a separate server) and used Oracle's newid utility to rename the database (new ORACLE_SID) and changed the directory naming to be consistent with the new name Renaming datafile, redo logs etc). When I do this for real I have to do it in the quickest way possible as I will have to get the users off whilst I can do this work. My question is, can I have a standby database with exactly the same data (obviously) but with a different ORACLE_SID and directory naming (structure will be identical)? This would be ideal as it would save me having to rename datafiles and ORACLE_SID during the down time. I am running this on a linux environment.

Many thanks in advance.

[Mike Donovan]

Having a standby database with a different SID to the primary database is possible with Dbvisit Standby.

At the time of setup you can detail the oracle_sid for the standby database if it is not the same as the primary database. Once the setup is done, at the standby database creation step, you can specify the location for datafiles and redo log files.

By default it uses the same location as for the primary database but you can change it according to your system. Along with this Dbvisit Standby also enables you to modify pfile parameters for the standby database.

[Peter Houghton]

Hi Mike,

Can you explain to me how this achieved i.e. what is going on 'under the covers' ? Is this for a logical or physical standby setup ? What I'm stuggling with is how the headers in the datafiles can be updated on the standby side with the new database name. I know we can remap paths of datafiles/redo logs because that is a control file update not in the actual database, but the datafile headers are part of the database and updating these would put the standby out of sync with its primary. Can you please explain.

Many thanks
Pete