Instead of updating the table create a new table and rename it, building indexes after the CTAS is done. Alter session force parallel DML Create table blerg parallel as select /*+ parallel(source) */ * from source Rename source source_old Rename blerg source Create indexes on source Such an update with never finish. -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of fmh Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 8:18 AM To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: "Preparing & Executing Massive DML Operations e.g. updates." I usually prepare for such ops ... - Instance prep: disable archive logs, use no logging ,... etc. - Session prep: enable PQ, PDML, ...etc - SQL Prep: rewrite it e.g. updateble inline views vs. correlated queries. - Use BULK SQL if need to. I'm running an update on a partitioned table of 44M rows. It has been 3 days now and there seems end is not near. 1) The update session is the only FG session in the db. v$session_longops show the query involved but all rows have 'sofar=totalwork'. The view has not updated since 2 days ago. How else can progress be monitored? 2) I did enable PDML ,but on 10.2.0.3, we hit this bug. The workaround did not work to disable the recycle bin. This was a major set back. Bug 4896424 - Parallel DML can fail with ORA-60 (Doc ID 4896424.8) If you've had any experience with such operations, please provide your comments/feedback to the above inquiries. -- ---------------------------------------- Thank you -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l