Pickleball spielen

When you look into V$RECOVERY_AREA_USAGE, you see a strange row at the bottom:

SQL> select * from v$recovery_area_usage;

FILE_TYPE               PERCENT_SPACE_USED PERCENT_SPACE_RECLAIMABLE NUMBER_OF_FILES     CON_ID
----------------------- ------------------ ------------------------- --------------- ----------
CONTROL FILE                             0                         0               0          0
REDO LOG                                 0                         0               0          0
ARCHIVED LOG                         10.18                         0              73          0
BACKUP PIECE                             0                         0               0          0
IMAGE COPY                               0                         0               0          0
FLASHBACK LOG                            0                         0               0          0
FOREIGN ARCHIVED LOG                     0                         0               0          0
AUXILIARY DATAFILE COPY                  0                         0               0          0

Curious what that could be? You will see values other than zero on a Logical Standby Database:

SQL> connect sys/oracle@logst as sysdba
Connected.
SQL> select database_role from v$database;

DATABASE_ROLE
----------------
LOGICAL STANDBY

SQL> select * from v$recovery_area_usage;

FILE_TYPE               PERCENT_SPACE_USED PERCENT_SPACE_RECLAIMABLE NUMBER_OF_FILES     CON_ID
----------------------- ------------------ ------------------------- --------------- ----------
CONTROL FILE                             0                         0               0          0
REDO LOG                                 0                         0               0          0
ARCHIVED LOG                         14.93                         0               9          0
BACKUP PIECE                             0                         0               0          0
IMAGE COPY                               0                         0               0          0
FLASHBACK LOG                            0                         0               0          0
FOREIGN ARCHIVED LOG                  2.03                         0              26          0
AUXILIARY DATAFILE COPY                  0                         0               0          0

In contrast to a Physical Standby Database, this one writes not only into standby logs but also into online logs while being in standby role. That leads to two different kinds of archive logs:
When DML (like insert and update) is done on the primary 1) that leads to redo entries into online logs 2) that are simultaneously shipped to the standby and written there into standby logs 2) also. The online logs on the primary and the standby logs on the standby will be archived 3) eventually. So far that is the same for both physical and logical standby. But now a difference: Logical standby databases do SQL Apply 4) by logmining the standby or the archive logs that came from the primary. That generates similar DML on the standby which in turn leads LGWR there to write redo into online logs 5) that will eventually get archived 6) as well.

A logical standby could do recovery only with its own archive logs (if there was a backup taken before) but not with the foreign archive logs. Therefore, those foreign archive logs can and do get deleted automatically. V$ARCHIVED_LOG and V$FOREIGN_ARCHIVED_LOG can be queried to monitor the two different kinds of logs.

That was one topic of the course Oracle Database 12c: Data Guard Administration that I delivered as an LVC – therefore the picture. Hope you find it useful 🙂