7
Initialization Parameters

This chapter describes Oracle initialization parameters for each Oracle instance, including the primary database and each standby database in the Data Guard environment.

The members of a standby configuration are transactionally consistent copies of the primary member. The remote archival functionality of the standby feature provides the mechanism by which the redo log files of the primary database are transported to the designated standby sites. Redo logs generated by the primary database are transported and applied to the standby databases.

All initialization parameters are contained in an initialization file, the name of which is a variation of init.ora depending on your operating system. As an alternative to specifying parameters in the initialization file, you can modify dynamic parameters at runtime using the ALTER SYSTEM SET or ALTER SESSION SET statements.

See Also: Oracle9i Database Reference and your Oracle operating system-specific documentation for more information about setting initialization parameters

Table 7-1 shows all of the initialization parameters that you need to implement a Data Guard environment. It describes whether a parameter applies to the primary database role, the standby database role, or both.

Table 7-1  Initialization Parameters Specific to the Oracle9i Data Guard Environment

Parameter	Description	For More Information
ARCHIVE_LAG_TARGET	Applies to the primary database role. Limits the amount of data that can be lost and effectively increases the availability of the standby database by forcing a log switch after the amount of time you specify (in seconds) elapses. That way, the standby database will not miss redo logs generated from a time range longer than a value of the ARCHIVE_LAG_TARGET parameter.	See Oracle9i Database Reference
COMPATIBLE	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Always set the same value at the primary and standby databases. If different, you may not be able to archive the redo logs from your primary database to the standby database.	See Oracle9i Database Reference
CONTROL_FILES	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Uniquely names the database control file. Always set this parameter to a different value from the CONTROL_FILES parameter in the primary database. The names of the control files for the standby database must exist at the standby site.	See Oracle9i Database Reference
CONTROL_FILE_RECORD_KEEP_TIME	Applies to the standby database role. Prevents reusing archived redo logs for a specified period of days. Setting this parameter prevents the ARCHIVELOG mechanism from overwriting information in the archived redo logs.	See Section 3.4.1.3
DB_FILE_NAME_CONVERT	Applies to the standby database role. Set to distinguish standby datafile filenames from primary datafile filenames. This parameter must be set on all standby databases.	See Section 4.6
DB_FILES	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Specifies the maximum number of database files that can be open for this database.	See Oracle9i Database Reference
DB_NAME	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Specifies a database identifier of up to 8 characters. Set it to the same value in the standby and primary initialization files.	See Oracle9i Database Reference
FAL_CLIENT	Applies to the standby database role. Assigns the FAL (fetch archive log) client name used by the FAL server to refer to the FAL client. This is the Oracle Net service name used by the primary database to refer to the standby database.	See Section 4.5
FAL_SERVER	Applies to the standby database role. Assigns the FAL (fetch archive log) server for the standby database.	See Section 4.5
LOCK_NAME_SPACE	Applies to the standby database role. Specifies the name space that the distributed lock manager (DLM) uses to generate lock names. Set this value if the standby database has the same name on the same cluster as the primary database.	See Oracle9i Database Reference
LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_1Foot 1	Applies to the standby database role. Specifies the location of the archived logs for a standby database in recovery mode.	See Section 3.6.3.4
LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_n1	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Defines a destination and attributes for the archived redo log file group.	See Section 3.3.1.1
LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_STATE_n	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Specifies the state of the destination specified by the LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_n parameters.	See Section 3.3.1.2
LOG_ARCHIVE_FORMAT	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Indicates the format for filenames of log files. LOG_ARCHIVE_FORMAT and STANDBY_ARCHIVE_DEST are used to construct the fully qualified filenames for the archived redo logs.	See Section 3.6.3.4
LOG_ARCHIVE_MAX PROCESSES	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Specifies the number of archiver processes to be invoked. This value is evaluated at instance startup if the LOG_ARCHIVE_START parameter has the value true; otherwise, this parameter is evaluated when the archiver process is invoked.	See Oracle9i Database Reference
LOG_ARCHIVE_MIN_SUCCEED_DEST	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Defines the minimum number of destinations that must succeed in order for the online log file to be available for reuse.	See Section 3.4.2.4
LOG_ARCHIVE_START	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Enables automatic archiving of filled groups each time an instance is started when LOG_ARCHIVE_START is set to true. To disable the automatic archiving of filled online redo log groups each time a database instance is started, set the LOG_ARCHIVE_START initialization parameter of a database's initialization parameter file to false.	See Oracle9i Database Administrator's Guide
LOG_ARCHIVE_TRACE	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Optionally, set this parameter to an integer value to see the progression of the archiving of redo logs to the standby site. The Oracle database server writes an audit trail of the archived logs received from the primary database into a trace file.	See Section 4.9.5
LOG_FILE_NAME_CONVERT	Applies to the standby database role. Set to make your standby redo log filenames distinguishable from primary database redo log filenames. The parameter value converts the filename of a new log file on the primary database to the filename of a log file on the standby database.	See Section 4.6
REMOTE_ARCHIVE_ENABLE	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Always set this parameter to true at the primary and standby databases in the Data Guard environment. This allows the standby database to receive redo logs for archiving from the primary database.	See Section 3.4.2
SORT_AREA_SIZE	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Set this parameter to execute the SELECT * FROM V$PARAMETER statement when the database is not mounted, is mounted, or is open.	See Section 4.8.3
STANDBY_ARCHIVE_DEST	Applies to the standby database role. Defines the standby database destination for the archived redo log file group. STANDBY_ARCHIVE_DEST and LOG_ARCHIVE_FORMAT are used to construct the fully qualified filenames for the archived redo logs.	See Section 3.6.3.4
STANDBY_FILE_MANAGEMENT	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. When set to auto, this parameter automates the creation and deletion of datafile filenames on the standby site using the same filenames as the primary site. Use this parameter with the DB_FILE_NAME_CONVERT initialization parameter to automate the process of creating files with identical filenames on the standby database and primary database.	See Section 4.6
USER_DUMP_DEST	Applies to the primary and standby database roles. Determines the location of trace files for a database.	See Section 4.9.5

1 The standby database assumes that the archived log file group is in the location specified by either the LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST or the LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_n parameters in the standby initialization parameter file; both parameters cannot be specified.