MAA - Oracle 10gR2 Redo Transport and Network Best Practices

Maximum Availability Architecture
APPENDIX B: USING DATABASE LINKS FOR READ MOSTLY
APPLICATIONS
The first step in redirecting updates from an Active Data Guard standby to a
remote database is to create a database link (dblink). This section describes best
practices for creating dblinks and then provides an example of the command you
use to actually create a dblink.
Best Practices for Creating dblinks:
Use the following best practices to create dblinks in an Active Data Guard
environment:
• Ensure all dblinks used by the configuration use Oracle Net service names
that are configured for connect time failover.
Specifically, you should configure the Oracle Net service name that the
standby database uses to propagate changes to the primary database for
connect time failover as such:
SALES =
(DESCRIPTION =
(ADDRESS_LIST=
(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = host1) (PORT = 1521))
(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = host2) (PORT = 1521)))
(CONNECT_DATA = (SERVER = DEDICATED) (SERVICE_NAME = SALES_RW) )
)
With the Oracle Net service name (SALES in the example), a connection
attempt is made using the first host (host1) in the address list. If the
connection does not complete then a second attempt is made using the
second host (host2) in the address list. While this simple modification
solves the majority of the issues, you must also address several other issues
as described in the following list:
• In the client side SQLNET.ORA file, set the
SQLNET.OUTBOUND_CONNECT_TIMEOUT parameter.
This parameter enables clients to quickly traverse an ADDRESS_LIST in
the event of a failure. For example, if a client attempts to connect to a host
that is unavailable, the connection attempt will be bounded to the time
specified by the SQLNET.OUTBOUND_CONNECT_TIMEOUT parameter,
after which the client attempts to connect to the next host in the
address_list. This behavior continues for each host in the
address_list until a connection is made. Setting the parameter to a
value of 3 seconds will suffice in most environments.
• To mitigate TCP timeouts, consider setting RECV_TIMEOUT and
SEND_TIMEOUT in the SQLNET.ORA file.
Oracle Active Data Guard: Oracle Data Guard 11g Page 23