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What is the INSTANT_RESTORE parameter used for? [message #653663]

Wed, 13 July 2016 15:19

markhooper99
Messages: 19
Registered: October 2013
Location: Calgary

Junior Member

I'm starting my company's Oracle 12c upgrade efforts. I've got a development database up and running and was looking at v$parameter and came across a parameter called: INSTANT_RESTORE.
I've hunted around a bit and am unable to locate any information on this parameter.
Does anyone know what this parameter is intended to do?

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Re: What is the INSTANT_RESTORE parameter used for? [message #653664 is a reply to message #653663]

Wed, 13 July 2016 15:47

BlackSwan
Messages: 26766
Registered: January 2009
Location: SoCal

Senior Member

markhooper99 wrote on Wed, 13 July 2016 13:19

I'm starting my company's Oracle 12c upgrade efforts. I've got a development database up and running and was looking at v$parameter and came across a parameter called: INSTANT_RESTORE.
I've hunted around a bit and am unable to locate any information on this parameter.
Does anyone know what this parameter is intended to do?

It is NOT documented, but does exist.
Hmmm

[oracle@vbgeneric ~]$ sqlplus system/oracle 

SQL*Plus: Release 12.1.0.2.0 Production on Wed Jul 13 16:44:20 2016

Copyright (c) 1982, 2014, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Last Successful login time: Mon Jul 11 2016 14:54:39 -04:00

Connected to:
Oracle Database 12c Enterprise Edition Release 12.1.0.2.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP, Advanced Analytics and Real Application Testing options

SQL> show parameter INSTANT_RESTORE

NAME				     TYPE	 VALUE
------------------------------------ ----------- ------------------------------
instant_restore 		     boolean	 FALSE
SQL>

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Re: What is the INSTANT_RESTORE parameter used for? [message #653672 is a reply to message #653664]

Thu, 14 July 2016 02:03

Frank Naude
Messages: 4571
Registered: April 1998

Senior Member

The description doesn't help much either:

SQL> SELECT description FROM sys.v$parameter WHERE name = 'instant_restore';

DESCRIPTION
----------------------------------------------------------------------
instant repopulation of datafiles

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Re: What is the INSTANT_RESTORE parameter used for? [message #653682 is a reply to message #653663]

Thu, 14 July 2016 10:08

bpeasland
Messages: 51
Registered: February 2015
Location: United States

Member

This parameter is not new for 12c. I first noticed it in 11.2.0.4: http://www.peasland.net/2014/07/22/new-parameters-in-11-2-0-4/

I believe it has to do with a feature called Instant Recovery. Arup Nanda wrote about there here: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/issue-archive/2007/07-jan/o17recovery-087778.html
Basically, you keep a copy of the datafile in the FRA. To do an instant restore, you don't actually copy the file back to its original location. Instead Oracle just uses the file in the FRA. Read Arup's column for more info.

HTH,
Brian

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