Chris, With a switchover, the other standby databases (often called the bystander databases) will stop processing the redo stream and you should thus restart the managed recovery again. Unless you specified the clause "through all switchover" when you originally started the recovery, but then you you should stop the recovery manually on the standby database that will become primary. When you do a failover, then the actions depend on whether or not the bystander databases are ahead of the new primary. Checkout the following MAA document : http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/availability/pdf/maa10gr2multiplestandbybp.pdf regards, Freek D'Hooge Uptime Oracle Database Administrator e-mail: freek.dhooge@xxxxxxxxx tel. +32 (0)3 451 23 82 http://www.uptime.be disclaimer ________________________________________ From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Newman, Christopher [cjnewman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: 03 November 2009 03:36 To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Dataguard 10g switchover question Sanity Check: We're have a primary and 3 physical standby's in ARCH mode. We're going to activate one of the standby's as primary, ditch the original primary and have the other 2 standby's feeding off the new primary. So here's a rough plan, let me know if you see anything horribly wrong: 1) On Primary: Shutdown immediate, startup, switch log, ALTER DATABASE COMMIT TO SWITCHOVER TO PHYSICAL STANDBY WITH SESSION SHUTDOWN; 2) On the standby we'll be turning on as the primary: Verify last log applied then ALTER DATABASE COMMIT TO SWITCHOVER TO PRIMARY; ALTER DATABASE OPEN; Point OID to the new primary, enable the other standby locations on the new primary, verify logs are being shipped and applied and backup the new primary. My main concern is making sure that the other two standby's are still usable. I believe if I use the 'activate standby' it will make the other standby's unusable, but a graceful switchover should be OK. Thanks- Chris -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l-- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l