Enabling Automatic Archiving of Redo Logs - Exercise

Objective: Practice taking a newly installed Oracle instance and enabling automatic archiving of redo log files (ARCHIVELOG mode), including duplex archive log destinations.

Troubleshooter

Exercise scoring

This exercise is worth a total of 10 points.

Background

You have just installed a new Oracle database named gl1. Your goal is to configure the database so that:

The database runs in ARCHIVELOG mode.
Archived redo logs are written to two destinations (duplexing).
The configuration enforces that archived logs must be successfully written as required for recovery.

The following is a legacy-style init.ora excerpt from a default installation. For the purpose of this exercise, treat it as the baseline configuration you are updating.


db_name = GL1
db_files = 1020
control_files = ("c:\oracle8\database\ctl1gl1.ora")
LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST=D:\oracle8\archive
LOG_ARCHIVE_FORMAT=arch%S.arc
LOG_ARCHIVE_DUPLEX_DEST=e:\oracle8\archive
LOG_ARCHIVE_MIN_SUCCEED_DEST=1
db_file_multiblock_read_count = 8
db_block_buffers = 200
shared_pool_size = 11534336
log_checkpoint_interval = 8000
processes = 50
dml_locks = 100
log_buffer = 8192
sequence_cache_entries = 10
sequence_cache_hash_buckets = 10
#audit_trail = true
#timed_statistics = true
background_dump_dest = c:\oracle8\rdbms80\trace
user_dump_dest = c:\oracle8\rdbms80\trace
db_block_size =2048
compatible = 8.0.5.0.0
sort_area_size = 65536
log_checkpoint_timeout = 0
remote_login_passwordfile = shared
max_dump_file_size = 10240

Target configuration

You must configure duplex archive log destinations as:


d:\oracle8\archive
e:\oracle8\archive

You also want to ensure archive logs are successfully written to the required destinations. In modern Oracle, you typically express this requirement using destination attributes and minimum-success settings. In this exercise, you will express it via the parameters shown in the legacy snippet.

Instructions

Parameter update: Enter the modifications you would make to initgl1.ora to support duplex archive destinations and required success behavior.
Operational steps: Identify the database state transitions and DBA commands you would use to convert the database from NOARCHIVELOG mode to ARCHIVELOG mode, with a brief explanation of each command.