Multitenant and standby: subsetting

In the previous post we looked at managing new PDBs added to a standby database, by copying the files to the DR server, as required. However, there is another possible approach, and that is to omit the PDB from the standby configuration altogether. There are two ways of achieving this:

1. Do it the old-school way. A long time before 12c arrived on the scene one could offline a datafile on the standby database to remove it. The same trick is used in TSPITR (tablespace point-in-time recovery), so that you don't need to restore and recover the entire database if you are only after some tablespaces.
2. 12.1.0.2 adds the option to automatically exclude the PDB from standby(s). And 12.2 adds the option to be more specific in case of multiple standbys.

For the sake of curiosity I started by setting standby file management to manual again. What I found is that there was very little difference, and the steps to take are exactly the same - it’s just the error message that is slightly different. So let’s look at this example:

create pluggable database  pdbcopy2 as clone using '/home/oracle/unplug_pdb.xml' file_name_convert=('/oradata/CDB2/pdbfrompdb','/oradata/CDB2/pdbcopy2');

So for MANUAL:

ALTER DATABASE RECOVER MANAGED STANDBY DATABASE
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00283: recovery session canceled due to errors
ORA-07202: sltln: invalid parameter to sltln.

And for AUTO:

ALTER DATABASE RECOVER MANAGED STANDBY DATABASE
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00283: recovery session canceled due to errors
ORA-01274: cannot add data file that was originally created as
'/oradata/CDB2/pdbcopy3/system01.dbf'

Now we can drop the missing datafile.
However, note that:
1. You need to be in the right container, otherwise you will get a misleading error message.
2. The files appear on the standby one-by-one and each of them stops the apply. So you have to drop, restart recovery, drop, restart recovery, rinse, repeat (and switch containers in the process as needed).

alter database datafile 20 offline drop
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01516: nonexistent log file, data file, or temporary file "20"

alter session set container=pdbcopy3;

Session altered.

select file#, name from v$datafile;
FILE# NAME
----- ----------------------------------------
   20 /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdbcopy3/system01.dbf

alter database datafile 20 offline drop;

Database altered.

ALTER DATABASE RECOVER MANAGED STANDBY DATABASE;
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-65040: operation not allowed from within a pluggable database

alter session set container=cdb$root;
Session altered.

ALTER DATABASE RECOVER MANAGED STANDBY DATABASE;

ALTER DATABASE RECOVER MANAGED STANDBY DATABASE
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00283: recovery session canceled due to errors
ORA-01274: cannot add data file that was originally created as           '/oradata/CDB2/pdbcopy3/sysaux01.dbf'

alter session set container=pdbcopy3;

Session altered.

alter database datafile 21 offline drop;

Database altered.

alter session set container=cdb$root;
Session altered.

ALTER DATABASE RECOVER MANAGED STANDBY DATABASE;

And let's try with the 12.1.0.2 new feature, specifying standby behavior directly:

create pluggable database  pdbcopy4 as clone using '/home/oracle/unplug_pdb.xml' file_name_convert=('/oradata/CDB2/pdbfrompdb','/oradata/CDB2/pdbcopy4') standbys=none;

Media Recovery Log /home/oracle/fra/CDB2SBY/archivelog/2015_11_13/o1_mf_1_778_c4d4m8q0_.arc
Recovery created pluggable database PDBCOPY4
File #22 added to control file as 'UNNAMED00022'. Originally created as:
'/oradata/CDB2/pdbcopy4/system01.dbf'
because the pluggable database was created with nostandby
or the tablespace belonging to the pluggable database is
offline.
File #23 added to control file as 'UNNAMED00023'. Originally created as:
'/oradata/CDB2/pdbcopy4/sysaux01.dbf'
because the pluggable database was created with nostandby
or the tablespace belonging to the pluggable database is
offline.

After all this activity, what do we see in v$datafile? The UNNAMED files are from manual standby file management and from the STANDBYS=NONE clause.

select file#, status, name from v$datafile;

FILE# STATUS  NAME
----- ------- -------------------------------------------------
    1 SYSTEM  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/system01.dbf
    2 SYSTEM  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdbseed/system01.dbf
    3 ONLINE  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/sysaux01.dbf
    4 ONLINE  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdbseed/sysaux01.dbf
    5 ONLINE  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/undotbs01.dbf
    6 ONLINE  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/users01.dbf
    7 SYSTEM  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdb1/system01.dbf
    8 ONLINE  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdb1/sysaux01.dbf
    9 ONLINE  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdb1/users.dbf
   10 SYSTEM  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdbfromseeduser/system01.dbf
   11 ONLINE  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdbfromseeduser/sysaux01.dbf
   12 SYSTEM  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdbfrompdb/system01.dbf
   13 ONLINE  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdbfrompdb/sysaux01.dbf
   14 SYSTEM  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdbfrompdbcopy/system01.dbf
   15 ONLINE  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdbfrompdbcopy/sysaux01.dbf
   16 SYSOFF  /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/dbs/UNNAMED00016
   17 RECOVER /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/dbs/UNNAMED00017
   18 SYSOFF  /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/dbs/UNNAMED00018
   19 RECOVER /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/dbs/UNNAMED00019
   20 SYSOFF  /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdbcopy3/system01.dbf
   21 RECOVER /oradata2/CDB2SBY/pdbcopy3/sysaux01.dbf
   22 SYSOFF  /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/dbs/UNNAMED00022
   23 RECOVER /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/dbs/UNNAMED00023

We can also see minor difference in v$pdbs:

SQL> select con_id, name, open_mode, recovery_status from v$pdbs;

CON_ID NAME            OPEN_MODE  RECOVERY
------ --------------- ---------- --------
     2 PDB$SEED         MOUNTED    ENABLED
     3 PDB1             MOUNTED    ENABLED
     4 PDBFROMSEED      MOUNTED    ENABLED
     5 PDBFROMPDB       MOUNTED    ENABLED
     6 PDFROMPDBCOPY    MOUNTED    ENABLED
     7 PDFROMPDBCOPY2   MOUNTED    ENABLED
     8 PDBCOPY2         MOUNTED    ENABLED
     9 PDBCOPY3         MOUNTED    ENABLED
    10 PDBCOPY4         MOUNTED    DISABLED

The last one has recovery disabled, as we used the STANDBYS=NONE clause. The others are being recovered, they just have all their tablespaces offline.

Note that the PDBs are still defined in the standby controlfile and you can switch to it, although you cannot open it, of course:

alter pluggable database pdbcopy3 open
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01147: SYSTEM tablespace file 20 is offline

As with offline datafiles in any other database, you can recover them. But that's a topic for another post.