This chapter describes how to manage the undo tablespace, which stores information used to roll back changes to the Oracle Database. It contains the following topics:
See Also:
Part III, "Automated File and Storage Management" for information about creating an undo tablespace whose datafiles are both created and managed by the Oracle Database server.Every Oracle Database must have a method of maintaining information that is used to roll back, or undo, changes to the database. Such information consists of records of the actions of transactions, primarily before they are committed. These records are collectively referred to as undo.
Undo records are used to:
Roll back transactions when a ROLLBACK
statement is issued
Recover the database
Provide read consistency
Analyze data as of an earlier point in time by using Oracle Flashback Query
Recover from logical corruptions using Oracle Flashback features
When a ROLLBACK
statement is issued, undo records are used to undo changes that were made to the database by the uncommitted transaction. During database recovery, undo records are used to undo any uncommitted changes applied from the redo log to the datafiles. Undo records provide read consistency by maintaining the before image of the data for users who are accessing the data at the same time that another user is changing it.
This section introduces the concepts of Automatic Undo Management and discusses the following topics:
Oracle provides a fully automated mechanism, referred to as automatic undo management, for managing undo information and space. In this management mode, you create an undo tablespace, and the server automatically manages undo segments and space among the various active sessions.
You set the UNDO_MANAGEMENT
initialization parameter to AUTO
to enable automatic undo management. A default undo tablespace is then created at database creation. An undo tablespace can also be created explicitly. The methods of creating an undo tablespace are explained in "Creating an Undo Tablespace".
When the instance starts, the database automatically selects the first available undo tablespace. If no undo tablespace is available, then the instance starts without an undo tablespace and stores undo records in the SYSTEM
tablespace. This is not recommended in normal circumstances, and an alert message is written to the alert log file to warn that the system is running without an undo tablespace.
If the database contains multiple undo tablespaces, you can optionally specify at startup that you want to use a specific undo tablespace. This is done by setting the UNDO_TABLESPACE
initialization parameter, as shown in this example:
UNDO_TABLESPACE = undotbs_01
In this case, if you have not already created the undo tablespace (in this example, undotbs_01
), the STARTUP
command fails. The UNDO_TABLESPACE
parameter can be used to assign a specific undo tablespace to an instance in an Oracle Real Application Clusters environment.
The following is a summary of the initialization parameters for automatic undo management:
Initialization Parameter | Description |
---|---|
UNDO_MANAGEMENT |
If AUTO , use automatic undo management. The default is MANUAL . |
UNDO_TABLESPACE |
An optional dynamic parameter specifying the name of an undo tablespace. This parameter should be used only when the database has multiple undo tablespaces and you want to direct the database instance to use a particular undo tablespace. |
When automatic undo management is enabled, if the initialization parameter file contains parameters relating to manual undo management, they are ignored.
See Also:
Oracle Database Reference for complete descriptions of initialization parameters used in automatic undo managementAfter a transaction is committed, undo data is no longer needed for rollback or transaction recovery purposes. However, for consistent read purposes, long-running queries may require this old undo information for producing older images of data blocks. Furthermore, the success of several Oracle Flashback features can also depend upon the availability of older undo information. For these reasons, it is desirable to retain the old undo information for as long as possible.
When automatic undo management is enabled, there is always a current undo retention period, which is the minimum amount of time that Oracle Database attempts to retain old undo information before overwriting it. Old (committed) undo information that is older than the current undo retention period is said to be expired. Old undo information with an age that is less than the current undo retention period is said to be unexpired.
Oracle Database automatically tunes the undo retention period based on undo tablespace size and system activity. You can specify a minimum undo retention period (in seconds) by setting the UNDO_RETENTION
initialization parameter. The database makes its best effort to honor the specified minimum undo retention period, provided that the undo tablespace has space available for new transactions. When available space for new transactions becomes short, the database begins to overwrite expired undo. If the undo tablespace has no space for new transactions after all expired undo is overwritten, the database may begin overwriting unexpired undo information. If any of this overwritten undo information is required for consistent read in a current long-running query, the query could fail with the snapshot
too
old
error message.
The following points explain the exact impact of the UNDO_RETENTION
parameter on undo retention:
The UNDO_RETENTION
parameter is ignored for a fixed size undo tablespace. The database may overwrite unexpired undo information when tablespace space becomes low.
For an undo tablespace with the AUTOEXTEND
option enabled, the database attempts to honor the minimum retention period specified by UNDO_RETENTION
. When space is low, instead of overwriting unexpired undo information, the tablespace auto-extends. If the MAXSIZE
clause is specified for an auto-extending undo tablespace, when the maximum size is reached, the database may begin to overwrite unexpired undo information.
To guarantee the success of long-running queries or Oracle Flashback operations, you can enable retention guarantee. If retention guarantee is enabled, the specified minimum undo retention is guaranteed; the database never overwrites unexpired undo data even if it means that transactions fail due to lack of space in the undo tablespace. If retention guarantee is not enabled, the database can overwrite unexpired undo when space is low, thus lowering the undo retention for the system. This option is disabled by default.
WARNING:
Enabling retention guarantee can cause multiple DML operations to fail. Use with caution.
You enable retention guarantee by specifying the RETENTION GUARANTEE
clause for the undo tablespace when you create it with either the CREATE DATABASE
or CREATE UNDO TABLESPACE
statement. Or, you can later specify this clause in an ALTER TABLESPACE
statement. You disable retention guarantee with the RETENTION NOGUARANTEE
clause.
You can use the DBA_TABLESPACES
view to determine the retention guarantee setting for the undo tablespace. A column named RETENTION
contains a value of GUARANTEE
, NOGUARANTEE
, or NOT APPLY
(used for tablespaces other than the undo tablespace).
Oracle Database automatically tunes the undo retention period based on how the undo tablespace is configured.
If the undo tablespace is fixed size, the database tunes the retention period for the best possible undo retention for that tablespace size and the current system load. This tuned retention period can be significantly greater than the specified minimum retention period.
If the undo tablespace is configured with the AUTOEXTEND
option, the database tunes the undo retention period to be somewhat longer than the longest-running query on the system at that time. Again, this tuned retention period can be greater than the specified minimum retention period.
Note:
Automatic tuning of undo retention is not supported for LOBs. This is because undo information for LOBs is stored in the segment itself and not in the undo tablespace. For LOBs, the database attempts to honor the minimum undo retention period specified byUNDO_RETENTION
. However, if space becomes low, unexpired LOB undo information may be overwritten.You can determine the current retention period by querying the TUNED_UNDORETENTION
column of the V$UNDOSTAT
view. This view contains one row for each 10-minute statistics collection interval over the last 4 days. (Beyond 4 days, the data is available in the DBA_HIST_UNDOSTAT
view.) TUNED_UNDORETENTION
is given in seconds.
select to_char(begin_time, 'DD-MON-RR HH24:MI') begin_time, to_char(end_time, 'DD-MON-RR HH24:MI') end_time, tuned_undoretention from v$undostat order by end_time; BEGIN_TIME END_TIME TUNED_UNDORETENTION --------------- --------------- ------------------- 04-FEB-05 00:01 04-FEB-05 00:11 12100 ... 07-FEB-05 23:21 07-FEB-05 23:31 86700 07-FEB-05 23:31 07-FEB-05 23:41 86700 07-FEB-05 23:41 07-FEB-05 23:51 86700 07-FEB-05 23:51 07-FEB-05 23:52 86700 576 rows selected.
See Oracle Database Reference for more information about V$UNDOSTAT
.
Undo Retention Tuning and Alert Thresholds For a fixed size undo tablespace, the database calculates the maximum undo retention period based on database statistics and on the size of the undo tablespace. For optimal undo management, rather than tuning based on 100% of the tablespace size, the database tunes the undo retention period based on 85% of the tablespace size, or on the warning alert threshold percentage for space used, whichever is lower. (The warning alert threshold defaults to 85%, but can be changed.) Therefore, if you set the warning alert threshold of the undo tablespace below 85%, this may reduce the tuned length of the undo retention period. For more information on tablespace alert thresholds, see "Managing Tablespace Alerts".
You set the undo retention period by setting the UNDO_RETENTION
initialization parameter. This parameter specifies the desired minimum undo retention period in seconds. As described in "Undo Retention", the current undo retention period may be automatically tuned to be greater than UNDO_RETENTION
, or, unless retention guarantee is enabled, less than UNDO_RETENTION
if space is low.
To set the undo retention period:
Do one of the following:
Set UNDO_RETENTION
in the initialization parameter file.
UNDO_RETENTION = 1800
Change UNDO_RETENTION
at any time using the ALTER SYSTEM
statement:
ALTER SYSTEM SET UNDO_RETENTION = 2400;
The effect of an UNDO_RETENTION
parameter change is immediate, but it can only be honored if the current undo tablespace has enough space.
You can size the undo tablespace appropriately either by using automatic extension of the undo tablespace or by using the Undo Advisor for a fixed sized tablespace.
Oracle Database supports automatic extension of the undo tablespace to facilitate capacity planning of the undo tablespace in the production environment. When the system is first running in the production environment, you may be unsure of the space requirements of the undo tablespace. In this case, you can enable automatic extension of the undo tablespace so that it automatically increases in size when more space is needed. You do so by including the AUTOEXTEND
keyword when you create the undo tablespace.
If you have decided on a fixed-size undo tablespace, the Undo Advisor can help you estimate needed capacity. You can access the Undo Advisor through Enterprise Manager or through the DBMS_ADVISOR
PL/SQL package. Enterprise Manager is the preferred method of accessing the advisor. For more information on using the Undo Advisor through Enterprise Manager, please refer to Oracle Database 2 Day DBA.
The Undo Advisor relies for its analysis on data collected in the Automatic Workload Repository (AWR). It is therefore important that the AWR have adequate workload statistics available so that the Undo Advisor can make accurate recommendations. For newly created databases, adequate statistics may not be available immediately. In such cases, an auto-extensible undo tablespace can be used.
An adjustment to the collection interval and retention period for AWR statistics can affect the precision and the type of recommendations that the advisor produces. See "Automatic Workload Repository" for more information.
To use the Undo Advisor, you first estimate these two values:
The length of your expected longest running query
After the database has been up for a while, you can view the Longest Running Query field on the Undo Management page of Enterprise Manager.
The longest interval that you will require for flashback operations
For example, if you expect to run Flashback Queries for up to 48 hours in the past, your flashback requirement is 48 hours.
You then take the maximum of these two undo retention values and use that value to look up the required undo tablespace size on the Undo Advisor graph.
You can activate the Undo Advisor by creating an undo advisor task through the advisor framework. The following example creates an undo advisor task to evaluate the undo tablespace. The name of the advisor is 'Undo Advisor'. The analysis is based on Automatic Workload Repository snapshots, which you must specify by setting parameters START_SNAPSHOT
and END_SNAPSHOT
. In the following example, the START_SNAPSHOT
is "1" and END_SNAPSHOT
is "2".
DECLARE tid NUMBER; tname VARCHAR2(30); oid NUMBER; BEGIN DBMS_ADVISOR.CREATE_TASK('Undo Advisor', tid, tname, 'Undo Advisor Task'); DBMS_ADVISOR.CREATE_OBJECT(tname, 'UNDO_TBS', null, null, null, 'null', oid); DBMS_ADVISOR.SET_TASK_PARAMETER(tname, 'TARGET_OBJECTS', oid); DBMS_ADVISOR.SET_TASK_PARAMETER(tname, 'START_SNAPSHOT', 1); DBMS_ADVISOR.SET_TASK_PARAMETER(tname, 'END_SNAPSHOT', 2); DBMS_ADVISOR.SET_TASK_PARAMETER(name, 'INSTANCE', 1); DBMS_ADVISOR.execute_task(tname); end; /
After you have created the advisor task, you can view the output and recommendations in the Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor in Enterprise Manager. This information is also available in the DBA_ADVISOR_*
data dictionary views.
See Also:
Oracle Database 2 Day DBA for more information on using advisors and "Using the Segment Advisor" for an example of creating an advisor task for a different advisor
Oracle Database Reference for information about the DBA_ADVISOR_*
data dictionary views
This section describes the various steps involved in undo tablespace management and contains the following sections:
There are two methods of creating an undo tablespace. The first method creates the undo tablespace when the CREATE DATABASE
statement is issued. This occurs when you are creating a new database, and the instance is started in automatic undo management mode (UNDO_MANAGEMENT = AUTO
). The second method is used with an existing database. It uses the CREATE UNDO TABLESPACE
statement.
You cannot create database objects in an undo tablespace. It is reserved for system-managed undo data.
Oracle Database enables you to create a single-file undo tablespace. Single-file, or bigfile, tablespaces are discussed in "Bigfile Tablespaces".
You can create a specific undo tablespace using the UNDO TABLESPACE
clause of the CREATE DATABASE
statement.
The following statement illustrates using the UNDO TABLESPACE
clause in a CREATE DATABASE
statement. The undo tablespace is named undotbs_01
and one datafile, /u01/oracle/rbdb1/undo0101.dbf
, is allocated for it.
CREATE DATABASE rbdb1 CONTROLFILE REUSE . . . UNDO TABLESPACE undotbs_01 DATAFILE '/u01/oracle/rbdb1/undo0101.dbf';
If the undo tablespace cannot be created successfully during CREATE DATABASE
, the entire CREATE DATABASE
operation fails. You must clean up the database files, correct the error and retry the CREATE DATABASE
operation.
The CREATE DATABASE
statement also lets you create a single-file undo tablespace at database creation. This is discussed in "Supporting Bigfile Tablespaces During Database Creation".
See Also:
Oracle Database SQL Reference for the syntax for using theCREATE DATABASE
statement to create an undo tablespaceThe CREATE UNDO TABLESPACE
statement is the same as the CREATE TABLESPACE
statement, but the UNDO
keyword is specified. The database determines most of the attributes of the undo tablespace, but you can specify the DATAFILE
clause.
This example creates the undotbs_02
undo tablespace with the AUTOEXTEND
option:
CREATE UNDO TABLESPACE undotbs_02 DATAFILE '/u01/oracle/rbdb1/undo0201.dbf' SIZE 2M REUSE AUTOEXTEND ON;
You can create more than one undo tablespace, but only one of them can be active at any one time.
See Also:
Oracle Database SQL Reference for the syntax for using theCREATE UNDO TABLESPACE
statement to create an undo tablespaceUndo tablespaces are altered using the ALTER TABLESPACE
statement. However, since most aspects of undo tablespaces are system managed, you need only be concerned with the following actions:
Adding a datafile
Renaming a datafile
Bringing a datafile online or taking it offline
Beginning or ending an open backup on a datafile
Enabling and disabling undo retention guarantee
These are also the only attributes you are permitted to alter.
If an undo tablespace runs out of space, or you want to prevent it from doing so, you can add more files to it or resize existing datafiles.
The following example adds another datafile to undo tablespace undotbs_01:
ALTER TABLESPACE undotbs_01 ADD DATAFILE '/u01/oracle/rbdb1/undo0102.dbf' AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 1M MAXSIZE UNLIMITED;
You can use the ALTER DATABASE...DATAFILE
statement to resize or extend a datafile.
See Also:
Oracle Database SQL Reference for ALTER TABLESPACE
syntax
Use the DROP TABLESPACE
statement to drop an undo tablespace. The following example drops the undo tablespace undotbs_01
:
DROP TABLESPACE undotbs_01;
An undo tablespace can only be dropped if it is not currently used by any instance. If the undo tablespace contains any outstanding transactions (for example, a transaction died but has not yet been recovered), the DROP TABLESPACE
statement fails. However, since DROP TABLESPACE
drops an undo tablespace even if it contains unexpired undo information (within retention period), you must be careful not to drop an undo tablespace if undo information is needed by some existing queries.
DROP TABLESPACE
for undo tablespaces behaves like DROP TABLESPACE...INCLUDING CONTENTS
. All contents of the undo tablespace are removed.
You can switch from using one undo tablespace to another. Because the UNDO_TABLESPACE
initialization parameter is a dynamic parameter, the ALTER SYSTEM SET
statement can be used to assign a new undo tablespace.
The following statement switches to a new undo tablespace:
ALTER SYSTEM SET UNDO_TABLESPACE = undotbs_02;
Assuming undotbs_01
is the current undo tablespace, after this command successfully executes, the instance uses undotbs_02
in place of undotbs_01
as its undo tablespace.
If any of the following conditions exist for the tablespace being switched to, an error is reported and no switching occurs:
The tablespace does not exist
The tablespace is not an undo tablespace
The tablespace is already being used by another instance (in a RAC environment only)
The database is online while the switch operation is performed, and user transactions can be executed while this command is being executed. When the switch operation completes successfully, all transactions started after the switch operation began are assigned to transaction tables in the new undo tablespace.
The switch operation does not wait for transactions in the old undo tablespace to commit. If there are any pending transactions in the old undo tablespace, the old undo tablespace enters into a PENDING OFFLINE
mode (status). In this mode, existing transactions can continue to execute, but undo records for new user transactions cannot be stored in this undo tablespace.
An undo tablespace can exist in this PENDING OFFLINE
mode, even after the switch operation completes successfully. A PENDING OFFLINE
undo tablespace cannot be used by another instance, nor can it be dropped. Eventually, after all active transactions have committed, the undo tablespace automatically goes from the PENDING OFFLINE
mode to the OFFLINE
mode. From then on, the undo tablespace is available for other instances (in an Oracle Real Application Cluster environment).
If the parameter value for UNDO TABLESPACE
is set to '' (two single quotes), then the current undo tablespace is switched out and the next available undo tablespace is switched in. Use this statement with care because there may be no undo tablespace available.
The following example unassigns the current undo tablespace:
ALTER SYSTEM SET UNDO_TABLESPACE = '';
The Oracle Database Resource Manager can be used to establish user quotas for undo space. The Database Resource Manager directive UNDO_POOL
allows DBAs to limit the amount of undo space consumed by a group of users (resource consumer group).
You can specify an undo pool for each consumer group. An undo pool controls the amount of total undo that can be generated by a consumer group. When the total undo generated by a consumer group exceeds its undo limit, the current UPDATE
transaction generating the undo is terminated. No other members of the consumer group can perform further updates until undo space is freed from the pool.
When no UNDO_POOL
directive is explicitly defined, users are allowed unlimited undo space.
If you are currently using rollback segments to manage undo space, Oracle strongly recommends that you migrate your database to automatic undo management. Oracle Database provides a function that provides information on how to size your new undo tablespace based on the configuration and usage of the rollback segments in your system. DBA privileges are required to execute this function:
DECLARE utbsiz_in_MB NUMBER; BEGIN utbsiz_in_MB := DBMS_UNDO_ADV.RBU_MIGRATION; end; /
The function returns the sizing information directly.
This section lists views that are useful for viewing information about undo space in the automatic undo management mode and provides some examples. In addition to views listed here, you can obtain information from the views available for viewing tablespace and datafile information. Please refer to "Viewing Datafile Information" for information on getting information about those views.
Oracle Database also provides proactive help in managing tablespace disk space use by alerting you when tablespaces run low on available space. Please refer to "Managing Tablespace Alerts" for information on how to set alert thresholds for the undo tablespace.
In addition to the proactive undo space alerts, Oracle Database also provides alerts if your system has long-running queries that cause SNAPSHOT TOO OLD
errors. To prevent excessive alerts, the long query alert is issued at most once every 24 hours. When the alert is generated, you can check the Undo Advisor Page of Enterprise Manager to get more information about the undo tablespace.
The following dynamic performance views are useful for obtaining space information about the undo tablespace:
View | Description |
---|---|
V$UNDOSTAT |
Contains statistics for monitoring and tuning undo space. Use this view to help estimate the amount of undo space required for the current workload. The database also uses this information to help tune undo usage in the system. This view is meaningful only in automatic undo management mode. |
V$ROLLSTAT |
For automatic undo management mode, information reflects behavior of the undo segments in the undo tablespace |
V$TRANSACTION |
Contains undo segment information |
DBA_UNDO_EXTENTS |
Shows the status and size of each extent in the undo tablespace. |
DBA_HIST_UNDOSTAT |
Contains statistical snapshots of V$UNDOSTAT information. Please refer to Oracle Database 2 Day DBA for more information. |
See Also:
Oracle Database Reference for complete descriptions of the views used in automatic undo management modeThe V$UNDOSTAT
view is useful for monitoring the effects of transaction execution on undo space in the current instance. Statistics are available for undo space consumption, transaction concurrency, the tuning of undo retention, and the length and SQL ID of long-running queries in the instance.
Each row in the view contains statistics collected in the instance for a ten-minute interval. The rows are in descending order by the BEGIN_TIME
column value. Each row belongs to the time interval marked by (BEGIN_TIME
, END_TIME
). Each column represents the data collected for the particular statistic in that time interval. The first row of the view contains statistics for the (partial) current time period. The view contains a total of 576 rows, spanning a 4 day cycle.
The following example shows the results of a query on the V$UNDOSTAT
view.
SELECT TO_CHAR(BEGIN_TIME, 'MM/DD/YYYY HH24:MI:SS') BEGIN_TIME, TO_CHAR(END_TIME, 'MM/DD/YYYY HH24:MI:SS') END_TIME, UNDOTSN, UNDOBLKS, TXNCOUNT, MAXCONCURRENCY AS "MAXCON" FROM v$UNDOSTAT WHERE rownum <= 144; BEGIN_TIME END_TIME UNDOTSN UNDOBLKS TXNCOUNT MAXCON ------------------- ------------------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- 10/28/2004 14:25:12 10/28/2004 14:32:17 8 74 12071108 3 10/28/2004 14:15:12 10/28/2004 14:25:12 8 49 12070698 2 10/28/2004 14:05:12 10/28/2004 14:15:12 8 125 12070220 1 10/28/2004 13:55:12 10/28/2004 14:05:12 8 99 12066511 3 ... 10/27/2004 14:45:12 10/27/2004 14:55:12 8 15 11831676 1 10/27/2004 14:35:12 10/27/2004 14:45:12 8 154 11831165 2 144 rows selected.
The preceding example shows how undo space is consumed in the system for the previous 24 hours from the time 14:35:12 on 10/27/2004.