I always liked it, consider the rollback. But there is nothing faster than shutdown abort. Oracle will be doing some recovery on the way up, then you have the second shutdown/startup. Joel Patterson Database Administrator joel.patterson@xxxxxxxxxxx x72542 904 727-2542 ________________________________ From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Queen Roo Roo Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 2:40 PM To: oracle-l Subject: alter system v shutdown abort Hello everyone, Can someone tell me an alter system kill session 'sid,serial#'; will kill runaway processes or long running queries as efficiently as doing a shutdown abort, startup , shutdown immediate? I have always run a job which shutdown kills all users who shouldn't be on after a specific time but the SA at my new job is skepticle because another DBA told him to use a shutdown abort, startup, shutdown immediate sequence. Thanks in advance, Ruth -- Ruth Gramolini ruth.gramolini@xxxxxxxxx