Oracle Built-in Packages

DBMS_OFFLINE_SNAPSHOT: Performing Offline Snapshot Instantiation

The DBMS_OFFLINE_SNAPSHOT package allows you to instantiate snapshots without having to run the CREATE SNAPSHOT command or the DBMS_REPEAT.SNAPSHOT_REPOBJECT procedure over the network (those methods are described under DBMS_REPCAT, later in this chapter). Doing offline instantiation in this way is particularly useful in cases where you wish to instantiate a snapshot site with a large amount of data in an advanced replication environment. Offline instantiation refers to the population of snapshots with the import and export utilities, as opposed to using the DBMS_SNAPSHOT.REFRESH procedure. This technique is less time-consuming and less taxing on your network, and it minimizes the time your environment must be quiesced.

You will typically use DBMS_OFFLINE_SNAPSHOT’s BEGIN_LOAD and END_LOAD procedures in conjunction with the DBMS_REPCAT package’s CREATE_SNAPSHOT_REPGROUP procedure; this procedure creates a new replicated snapshot group. The following sections summarize the syntax of the calls to BEGIN_LOAD and END_LOAD. See the later section Section 14.4 for a discussion of the DBMS_REPCAT procedure and how these procedures work together to instantiate snapshots in an advanced replication environment.

Getting Started with DBMS_OFFLINE_SNAPSHOT

The DBMS_OFFLINE_SNAPSHOT package is created when the Oracle database is installed. The dbmsofln.sql script (found in the built-in packages source directory, as described in ...