On Wed, December 6, 2006 8:54, Niall Litchfield said: > On 12/6/06, Ric Van Dyke <ric.van.dyke@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> Carel-Jan, >> >> >> >> You are very correct that as stated in the documentation the version >> of >> Oracle are supposed to be the same (as in identical) on the primary >> and the >> standby. However I worked with the folks who developed the standby >> database >> code and this is more of a CYA requirement then a real one. There >> was some >> long discussions about this requirement and I believe that >> "paranoia" won >> out, the idea being it's better to be over restrictive then not. >> The issue >> is more about the format of the redo log stream then anything else. >> It's >> very likely that this setup will work just fine. And given that Tony >> (apparently) has been running with this setup for some period of >> time, it's >> again likely that this will continue to work just fine. >> > > My take on this is that this is merely the technical issue as to > whether the > standby database will physically work. I don't see it as the > important > issue here at all. I think there are at least 2 likely more important > issues. > > First is the support issue, it may not be a likely scenario, but > people > invest in DG precisely because they value extremely highly the > availability > and supportability of the platform that their data is on. Otherwise > the > logical thing to do is no standby or a cheaper solution for HA. It > doesn't > make any sense to me to spend those dollars and man-hours getting the > thing > setup and then make it unsupported. > > Second is the fact that generally it isn't the data that people want > to make > available, but the data and the applications that access that data. > Here we > are specifically told that the application mandates a lower patchset > than > the standby is at. In otherwords in the event of a switchover or > failover > the application is at a non-mandated patchset level. > > Now for sure this all may well work perfectly practicably, but it does > rather raise the General's question about a nuclear deterrent "What > the **** > is the thing for?" It's back, for me, to a common fault of DBAs > (myself most > definitely included this isn't aimed at the OP) that we consider > carefully > technical issues and forget the business issues that are at the root > of the > technical course of action in the first place. > Hi Guys, Very interesting discussion here. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your viewpoint), this was a simple typo by me. The standby database's version and patch level is identical to that of the primary. :) Apologies. Funnily enough I posted the same query to Metalink (with the same typo), haven't got an answer yet though. I have to deal with this in my lunch breaks/free time, as I'm working on another customer site right now. Cheers. Will update this evening. Also, I subscribe to the list, copies to me are a wasted effort, though my duplicate filter will /dev/null them. -- Tony -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l