Hi Listers, I am trying to build a standby database on a different host from the primary. I have some confusions. 1- Would the db_name, instance_name must be same on both primary and standby databases? 2- Only service_name would be different on both primary and standby databases? 3- The third thing is that could anyone please point me to some easy-to-follow material to build up a standby database. I will be very very indebted. many many thanks. regards, Fahd -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l