Always worth starting with the basics. However, this may only be
relevant if the database is accessed at the time the offline backup is
taken. If you backup and leave down, you might have to wait til an End
of Week / Month, Quarter or Year cycle to really determine if that
particular instance is accessed during those fiscal (or other) periods.
On anther tack, extract list of registered database user accounts and
contact those users to confirm if any database / resource is needed. One
typical internal audit task checks established user accounts against
those still employed, and whether their role still requires them access.
You'd be surprised how many accounts exist because they're "hardcoded"
into specific applications, functions or reports despite the user being
no-longer in that role or even employed.! [my OS / database accounts and
corresponding privs were still in existence 8 months after I had left
full-time employment and returned as a consultant !]
At the end of the day, lesson is to establish and maintain that old
chestnut - documentation. If your org is able to fund 100s or 1000s of
instances, then its about time to employ something akin to Enterprise
Manager Cloud Control tool ?
Raza
On 4/13/2016 10:51 AM, Mladen Gogala wrote:
On 04/12/2016 08:33 PM, Oracle DBA wrote:
Question – How to determine if a database is in use.
Well, here is a simple way:
1. Ask around.
2. Take a full offline backup. If someone objects, the database is in
use.
3. If nobody complains by time the backup is finished, start it up
using the following command: "startup mount restrict" and when the
database comes up, execute "drop database" command. That will
provide immediate savings in space and machine resources.
4. If nobody complains, the database is not used.
5. If somebody does complain, you have a full offline backup and can
bring it back.
--
Mladen Gogala
Oracle DBA
http://mgogala.freehostia.com