On 6/11/07, Hallas, John (EXP N-ARM) <john.hallas@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
I have never understood why you have to connect to the source database and what happens when you do.
Rman reads the controlfile from the source(production) database. In the case of a 'set until time' duplication I'd have thought that in principle Oracle could read a backup controlfile, but for duplicate more generally you will want the current controlfile information. One issue I have had to battle with is change control. Even though you
are building a copy database on a test/development node you still have to make a connection to the production system , which requires a CC.
I don't know if your organisation operates ITIL change management practices, but if they do then this sort of activity would exactly fall under the guise of a standard (i.e routine) change. I'm quite agressive with change control myself - meaning if in doubt record it, but it does seem to me that making a copy of a production system absolutely is something that should be recorded and approved (maybe that's the ex auditor trying to get out). I raised a metalink call with Oracle on this matter several years ago
(probably v8) but I IIRC the answer was waffle and there was no good reason. And why oh why is the source database called 'target'
well the why is because that is what RMAN always calls the primary database, but I agree it's an awful name, as is auxiliary. I quite like the idea of calling the primary database the source and any auxiliary the target - even for backups - since in my head we backup sources and copy to targets and never backup targets. Still as Dave Ensor famously pointed out if you can have a product called multi-threaded server that is neither multi threaded nor a server what hope is there for naming. --
Niall Litchfield Oracle DBA http://www.orawin.info