Not long time ago, I came across a usage of dbms_alert to manage running jobs. As the solution implemented must work also for RAC, I wanted to know whether dbms_alert works on RAC across instances. The documentation nor Metalink does not say anything (contrary to dbms_pipe, which does NOT work on RAC). So, if they don't warn, it should work... However, Julian Dyke says, that dbms_alert does not work and is the same as dbms_pipe (sources: http://juliandyke.com/Presentations/Presentations.html#ARoughGuideToRAC , page 17, or Pro Oracle Database 10g RAC on Linux, page 426). You know, never trust anybody, so I conducted a test case (10.2.0.3 on Linux x86_64, VMware ESX server, 2-node RAC): You will need two simultaneous sessions, I mark them with DWH1> and DWH2> here. DWH1> select instance_name from v$instance; INSTANCE_NAME ---------------- DWH1 DWH2> select instance_name from v$instance; INSTANCE_NAME ---------------- DWH2 DWH2> exec dbms_alert.register('TST'); ...
I use this blog to publish the small bits I come accross when using the Oracle Database. It's the "every day I learn something new" style.