Setting Up the Flash Recovery Area - Oracle
(Excerpted from Robert Freeman)To set up the flash recovery area, you need to configure the following parameters (which are new in Oracle Database 10g):
db_recovery_file_dest_size
Example:
Alter system set db_recovery_file_dest_size=20G scope=both;
Purpose:
This parameter sets the allocated size of the flash recovery area, and must be defined in order to enable the flash recovery area. This allows you to control how much disk space will be allocated to the flash recovery area.
You should not set this value to a size that is greater than the total amount of available disk space that is available to you. Otherwise, backups will fail.
db_recovery_file_dest
Example:
Alter system set db_recovery_file_dest= '/u01/oracle/flash_recovery' scope=both;
Purpose:
This is the location of the flash recovery area. The parameter can be set to any valid file system, or you can use Oracle Database 10g Automatic Storage Management (ASM) disk group.
Note that you must specify the db_recovery_file_dest_size parameter before you specify the db_recovery_file_dest parameter. Failure to do so will result in an ORA32001 error message. In a similar fashion, you must disable the db_recovery_file_ dest parameter before you reset the db_recovery_file_dest_size parameter. Leaving db_recovery_file_dest empty disables the flash recovery area. Here is an example of disabling the flash recovery area by resetting the db_recovery_file_dest parameter:
Alter system set db_recovery_file_dest=' ' scope=both;
Finally, in an Oracle Real Application Clusters environment, you cannot specify these settings for a specific instance; they must be consistent throughout the whole cluster.
Flash Recovery Area Views
The V$RECOVERY_FILE_DEST view, new in Oracle Database 10g, provides an overview of the recovery area that is defined in your database. It provides the size that the flash recovery area is configured for, the amount of space used, how much space can be reclaimed, and the number of files in the flash recovery area.
A new column, IS_RECOVERY_DEST_FILE, can be found in a number of Oracle Database 10g’s V$ views, such as V$CONTROLFILE, V$LOGFILE, V$ARCHIVED_ LOG, V$DATAFILE_COPY, and V$BACKUP_PIECE. This column is a Boolean that indicates whether or not the file is in a flash recovery area.
Another new column, BYTES, can be found in the views V$BACKUP_PIECE and RC_BACKUP_PIECE (an RMAN recovery catalog view). This column indicates the size, in bytes, of the backup-set piece. This can be used to help you determine how much of the flash recovery area your backups are already consuming.
NOTE - Manually removing fixed files from the flash recovery area can have unexpected consequences. Oracle Database 10g does not immediately detect the removal of these files, and thus the space is not reclaimed. If you end up manually removing files (or lose a disk perhaps), use the RMANcrosscheck command along with thedeletecommand to cause Oracle Database 10g to update the current control file information on the flash recovery area.
RMAN Commands Related to Flash Recovery Areas
RMAN has been enhanced with new commands that allow you to back up and restore the flash recovery area. The RMAN command backup recovery area allows you to back up all files required to restore the database via RMAN from a recovery area to an sbt (tape) device. The following types of files are backed up with this command:
- Full and incremental backup sets
- Control file autobackups
- Archive logs
- Datafile copies
- Flashback logs
- Incremental bitmaps
- The current control file
- Online redo logs
NOTE -- The backup recovery area and backup recovery files commands are nice commands to have available when you do your primary backups to disk but want to later back up those backup sets to tape!
RMAN Backup and Restore to a Flash Recovery Area
When a flash recovery area is defined (via the db_recovery_file_dest parameter), RMAN sends backups directly to the flash recovery area. If you are using a local or CFS file system, you will find that RMAN creates a directory structure for the flash recovery area. Typically, the structure includes a directory for the database being backed up and, underneath that directory, another directory for the type of backup.
Recoveries also use the flash recovery area if the appropriate backup set is within the flash recovery area. Also, you can specify a recovery area to use when restoring a control file or SPFILE from an autobackup by using the new recovery area clause, as shown in this example:
RMAN> Restore controlfile from autobackup using recovery area 'c:\recovery';
Other Flash Recovery Area Features
The alter database add logfile and alter database add standby logfile commands, by default, now create an online redo log member in the flash recovery area if the OMF-related parameter db_create_online_log_dest_n is not set. The alter database drop logfile and alter database rename file commands also support files in the flash recovery area.
During database creation, Oracle Database 10g can use the flashback recovery area to store the database control file and online redo logs. If the OMF-related parameter db_create_online_log_dest_n is defined, then the control file and redo logs will be created in those locations, but will not be created in the flash recovery area, even if the flash recovery area is defined. If db_create_online_log_dest_n is not defined but create_file_dest is defined, then the control file and online redo logs will be created in the location defined by create_file_dest. If the parameter db_ recovery_file_dest is also defined, then a copy of the control file and online redo logs will get created there as well. Finally, if only db_recovery_file_dest is defined, then the control file will get created in that location. If none of these parameters is defined, then the control file and online redo logs will be created to a default location, which is OS specific.
