Question

Modify Oracle Tablespace by adding new dbf files and removing some of old files

Asked by: sevior

Hello Experts!

I have very old, relatively large (~80 GB taken by data and indexes) Oracle DB (Oracle8i Enterprise Edition Release 8.1.7.4.0).
Data files for tablespace where data and indexes are looks 

/usr/data/oracle/oracle_db0 (2 GB  its a soft link to raw volume)
/usr/data/oracle/oracle_db1 (2 GB  its a soft link to raw volume)
.
.
/usr/data/oracle/oracle_db20 (2 GB  its a soft link to raw volume)
/abc/data/oracle_db21 (1.8 GB  file!)
.
Etc, etc

So, tablespace consist of raw volumes and UNIX files.
I would like to expand this tablespace by adding more 2 GB raw volumes  I am able to to do this, but how do I get rid of files? How to manage data transfer from these files to additional raw space I add?

Thank you.

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Asked On
2009-10-03 at 09:44:17ID24782586
Topics

Oracle Product Info

,

Oracle 8.x

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Answers

 

by: seviorPosted on 2009-10-03 at 10:00:26ID: 25485951

I understand that I have an option to export - recreate tablespace - import.
I have completed this already (on machene that has been cloned from production one) - this entire process takes forever (remember I'm dealing with very old system, however cloned syetm is much newer hardware), that's why I did ask about "altering" tablespace option. I also understand that it is almost no chance to make files manipulation working. I'm still looking forward to hear your final NO WAY!

 

by: mrjoltcolaPosted on 2009-10-03 at 10:33:53ID: 25486061

Why do you want to drop it?

If this is all one tablespace, perhaps Oracle has already stored objects in that datafile. Once the datafile is added to Oracle, you should leave it. You can try to shrink the datafile to a very small size, but Oracle will only allow you to shrink it as far as possible without losing the extents in it.

If you really want to be rid of the cooked file, and ony want raw, consider creating a new tablespace and migrating all the objects to it, then drop the old tablespace, including all the datafiles.

 

by: mrjoltcolaPosted on 2009-10-03 at 11:04:58ID: 25486208

>>How to manage data transfer from these files to additional raw space I add?

Perhaps I misread your original question. You don't actually want to drop the files, you want to migrate existing cooked files to raw devices?

You can do that with either RMAN or the "dd" command.

I have migrated databases between regular (cooked) files and ASM in the past, with RMAN, and the same approach should work with cooked <-> raw. See my RMAN samples below. The only one I have never tested is the raw conversion.

Before doing anything like this, make sure to take a full backup. You will want to take the datafile offline, restore it to a raw location, then rename it.

1) SQL> alter tablespace foo offline;
2) RMAN> copy datafile 'c:/oradata/ora1/foo.dbf' to 'd:/oradata/ora1/foo.dbf';
3) SQL> alter tablespace foo rename datafile 'c:/oradata/ora1/foo.dbf' to 'd:/oradata/ora1/foo.dbf';
4) SQL> alter tablespace foo online;
 
For ASM replace the filenames above in steps 2 and 3 with ASM paths
 
1) SQL> alter tablespace foo offline;
2) RMAN> copy datafile '+DISKGROUP1/ora1/foo.dbf.123' to '+DISKGROUP2/ora1/foo.dbf.123;
3) SQL> alter tablespace foo rename datafile '+DISKGROUP1/ora1/foo.dbf.123' to '+DISKGROUP1/ora1/foo.dbf.123';
4) SQL> alter tablespace foo online;
 
 
For cooked to raw I expect it will be like this. Assume your raw devices are setup with symlinks in /oradata/raw/*
 
1) SQL> alter tablespace foo offline;
2) RMAN> copy datafile '/oradata/ora1/foo1.dbf' to '/oradata/raw/foo1';
3) SQL> alter tablespace foo rename datafile '/oradata/ora1/foo1.dbf' ' to '/oradata/raw/foo1';
4) SQL> alter tablespace foo online;
 
 
An alternate method that can be done while the tablespace is open for most of the operation. Copy it first, while it is open. Then take offline, switch to new datafile and recover the tablespace to open. This can be used, for example, if there is a lot of datafile to copy and you want minimal maintenance downtime.
 
 
RMAN> copy datafile 'c:/oradata/ora1/foo.dbf' to 'd:/oradata/ora1/foo.dbf';
SQL> alter tablespace foo offline;
RMAN> switch datafile c:/oradata/ora1/foo.dbf' to copy;
RMAN> recover tablespace foo;
SQL> alter tablespace foo online;

                                              
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by: seviorPosted on 2009-10-03 at 14:37:31ID: 31636744

Thank you mrjoltcole you are absolutely right.
I was using dd for years to transfer one proprietary database from UNIX OS (where it was on raw volume) to Windows with command:
 
dd if=/usr/data/link_raw_volume bs=1024 of=/usr/export/data_file

Here is I can use it from file-to-raw. However, in my example bs (block size = 1024) I have no idea if Oracle data file has blocks and size they have. Do you know?

I will do reading on RMAN  I have not used it. Im familiar with similar program.

Regarding you question why not keep everything as is  its a long story. I can tell it to you if Experts Exchange has something like internal messaging system. This info is outside of my question, I dont like to contaminate knowledge database.

Thanks again for answering my question.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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