Preface

Oracle Streams Replication Administrator's Guide describes the features and functionality of Streams that can be used for data replication. This document contains conceptual information about Streams replication, along with information about configuring and managing a Streams replication environment.

This preface contains these topics:

• Audience
• Organization
• Related Documentation
• Conventions
• Documentation Accessibility

Audience

Oracle Streams Replication Administrator's Guide is intended for database administrators who create and maintain Streams replication environments. These administrators perform one or more of the following tasks:

• Plan for a Streams replication environment
• Configure a Streams replication environment
• Configure conflict resolution in a Streams replication environment
• Administer a Streams replication environment
• Monitor a Streams replication environment
• Perform necessary troubleshooting activities for a Streams replication environment

To use this document, you need to be familiar with relational database concepts, SQL, distributed database administration, general Oracle Streams concepts, Advanced Queuing concepts, PL/SQL, and the operating systems under which you run a Streams environment.

Organization

This document contains:

Part I, "Streams Replication Concepts"

Contains chapters that describe conceptual information relating to Streams.

Chapter 1, "Understanding Streams Replication"

Contains general conceptual information about Streams replication. Includes information about change capture, propagation, change apply, and instantiation in a Streams replication environment.

Chapter 2, "Instantiation and Streams Replication"

Contains conceptual information about instantiation and Streams replication. Includes conceptual information about preparing database objects for instantiation and information about using various utilities to perform instantiations.

Chapter 3, "Streams Conflict Resolution"

Contains conceptual information about conflicts. Includes information about the possible types of conflicts, conflict detection, conflict avoidance, and conflict resolution in Streams environments.

Chapter 4, "Streams Tags"

Contains conceptual information about Streams tags. Includes information about how tag values are used in rules, how a tag value can be set for an apply process, and how to avoid change cycling using tags.

Chapter 5, "Streams Heterogeneous Information Sharing"

Contains conceptual information about heterogeneous information sharing using Streams. Includes information about sharing information in an Oracle database with a non-Oracle database, sharing information in a non-Oracle database with an Oracle database, and using Streams to share information between two non-Oracle databases.

Part II, "Configuring and Administering Streams Replication"

Contains chapters that illustrate example environments.

Chapter 6, "Configuring Streams Replication"

Contains information about configuring a single source and multiple source Streams replication environment. Also includes instructions for adding objects and databases to an existing Streams environment.

Chapter 7, "Managing Capture, Propagation, and Apply"

Contains information about managing capture processes, propagations, and apply processes in a Streams replication environment. Also includes instructions for managing Streams tags, and for performing database point-in-time recovery at a destination database in a Streams environment.

Chapter 8, "Performing Instantiations"

Contains contains instructions for performing instantiations in a Streams replication environment. Database objects must be instantiated at a destination database before changes to these objects can be replicated.

Chapter 9, "Managing Logical Change Records (LCRs)"

Contains instructions for managing logical change records (LCRs) in a Streams replication environment. Specifically, this chapter includes requirements for managing LCRs, instructions for constructing LCRs, and information about managing LCRs that contain LONG, LONG RAW, or LOB column data.

Chapter 10, "Monitoring Streams Replication"

Contains information about monitoring a Streams replication environment. This chapter contains example queries that you may want to use to monitor your Streams replication environment.

Chapter 11, "Troubleshooting Streams Replication"

Contains information about identifying and correcting common apply process problems in a Streams replication environment.

Part III, "Example Replication Environments"

Contains chapters that illustrate example environments.

Chapter 12, "Simple Single Source Replication Example"

Contains a step by step example that configures a simple single source replication environment using Streams.

Chapter 13, "Single Source Heterogeneous Replication Example"

Contains a step by step example that configures a single source heterogeneous replication environment using Streams. Also contains step by step examples for adding objects and databases to this environment.

Chapter 14, "Multiple Source Replication Example"

Contains a step by step example that configures a multiple source replication environment using Streams.

Part IV, "Appendixes"

Contains chapters that illustrate example environments.

Appendix A, "Migrating Advanced Replication to Streams"

Contains information about migrating an Advanced Replication environment to a Streams environment. This chapter provides a conceptual overview of the steps in this process and documents each step with procedures and examples.

Related Documentation

For more information, see these Oracle resources:

• Oracle Streams Concepts and Administration
• Oracle Database Concepts
• Oracle Database Administrator's Guide
• Oracle Database SQL Reference
• PL/SQL Packages and Types Reference
• PL/SQL User's Guide and Reference
• Oracle Database Utilities
• Oracle Database Heterogeneous Connectivity Administrator's Guide
• Streams online help for the Streams tool in the Oracle Enterprise Manager Console

You may find more information about a particular topic in the other documents in the Oracle documentation set.

Oracle error message documentation is only available in HTML. If you only have access to the Oracle Documentation CD, you can browse the error messages by range. Once you find the specific range, use your browser's "find in page" feature to locate the specific message. When connected to the Internet, you can search for a specific error message using the error message search feature of the Oracle online documentation.

Many of the examples in this book use the sample schemas of the seed database, which is installed by default when you install Oracle. Refer to Oracle Database Sample Schemas for information on how these schemas were created and how you can use them yourself.

Printed documentation is available for sale in the Oracle Store at

http://oraclestore.oracle.com/

To download free release notes, installation documentation, white papers, or other collateral, please visit the Oracle Technology Network (OTN). You must register online before using OTN; registration is free and can be done at

http://otn.oracle.com/membership/

If you already have a username and password for OTN, then you can go directly to the documentation section of the OTN Web site at

http://otn.oracle.com/documentation/

In addition, you can find resources related to Oracle Streams at

http://otn.oracle.com/products/dataint/content.html

Conventions

This section describes the conventions used in the text and code examples of this documentation set. It describes:

• Conventions in Text
• Conventions in Code Examples

Conventions in Text

We use various conventions in text to help you more quickly identify special terms. The following table describes those conventions and provides examples of their use.

Conventions in Code Examples

Code examples illustrate SQL, PL/SQL, SQL*Plus, or other command-line statements. They are displayed in a monospace (fixed-width) font and separated from normal text as shown in this example:

SELECT username FROM dba_users WHERE username = 'MIGRATE';

The following table describes typographic conventions used in code examples and provides examples of their use.

[ ]

DECIMAL (digits [ , precision ])

{ }

{ENABLE | DISABLE}

|

{ENABLE | DISABLE}
[COMPRESS | NOCOMPRESS]

...

CREATE TABLE ... AS subquery;

SELECT col1, col2, ... , coln FROM 
employees;

 .
 .
 .

SQL> SELECT NAME FROM V$DATAFILE;
NAME
------------------------------------
/fsl/dbs/tbs_01.dbf
/fs1/dbs/tbs_02.dbf
.
.
.
/fsl/dbs/tbs_09.dbf
9 rows selected.

acctbal NUMBER(11,2);
acct    CONSTANT NUMBER(4) := 3;

Italics

CONNECT SYSTEM/system_password
DB_NAME = database_name

UPPERCASE

SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM 
employees;
SELECT * FROM USER_TABLES;
DROP TABLE hr.employees;

lowercase

SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM 
employees;
sqlplus hr/hr
CREATE USER mjones IDENTIFIED BY ty3MU9;

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For additional information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

JAWS, a Windows screen reader, may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, JAWS may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.