Oracle Database Discussions

Hi,
I have just tried my hand at building a Physical standby database in Oracle 10gR2 using RMAN. I will detail out the steps that i have performed before asking my question.

I configured every pre-requisite and i did not create any SRL's on primary before building a standby database. I am using LGWR ASYNC for redo transmission. I have configured FAL_CLIENT and FAL_SERVER. Protection mode is MAX PERFORMANCE and it is on Solaris 10 x86_64

1. Took a RMAN full backup

and created a standby control file as

SQL> alter database create standby controlfile as '/tmp/standby.ctl';



2. On another server, I copied the pfile, standby controlfile (renamed it) from primary and mounted the database.

sqlplus /as sysdba'
SQL> startup mount pfile='...';

rman target /

RMAN> restore database;

SQL> alter database recover managed standby database disconnect from session;


Everything worked and MRP was applying the archived logs as they were received from the primary. But, i have seen the SRL's created with default names on the primary database & standby database by Oracle even though i did not explicitly create them. Is this a normal behaviour? I saw them using v$standby_log.

As a Physical standby database will not use any ONLINE REDO LOGS and i haven't created any with the procedure i have used. i have performed a SWITCHOVER, which has worked with out any problem. My question here is

1. How did Oracle open the database database when there were no redo logs physically present on the standby site? Is this a normal behavior in a standby environment where Oracle creates ONLINE REDO LOG files for a Standby database being transitioned to Primary whenever a SWITCHOVER or FAILOVER occurs? If this is the case, it is obvious that Oracle will take the LOG SEQUENCE from the last applied ARCHIVED LOG and will start the ONLINE LOG from that sequence?

Please correct me if i have understood anything wrong here or if i have configured anything wrong. But with the above configuration the Standby database worked perfectly well and switchover was successful too.


Thanks,
Harris.