Redo checkpoint

hi folks,
what is a redo check point..

regards

You are referring to LOG_CHECKPOINT_INTERVAL?

LOG_CHECKPOINT_INTERVAL specifies the frequency of checkpoints in terms of the number of redo log file blocks that can exist between an incremental checkpoint and the last block written to the redo log. This number refers to physical operating system blocks, not database blocks.

Regardless of this value, a checkpoint always occurs when switching from one online redo log file to another. Therefore, if the value exceeds the actual redo log file size, checkpoints occur only when switching logs. Checkpoint frequency is one of the factors that influence the time required for the database to recover from an unexpected failure.

A Checkpoint is a database event which synchronizes the modified data blocks in memory with the datafiles on disk. It offers Oracle the means for ensuring the consistency of data modified by transactions. The mechanism of writing modified blocks on disk in Oracle is not synchronized with the commit of the corresponding transactions.

A checkpoint has two purposes:
(1) to establish data consistency, and
(2) enable faster database recovery.

How is recovery faster? Because all database changes up to the checkpoint have been recorded in the datafiles, making it unnecessary to apply redo log entries prior to the checkpoint. The checkpoint must ensure that all the modified buffers in the cache are really written to the corresponding datafiles to avoid the loss of data which may occur with a crash (instance or disk failure).


A checkpoint is realized on five types of events:

- At each switch of the redo log files.
- When the delay for LOG_CHECKPOINT_TIMEOUT is reached.
- When the size in bytes corresponding to :
(LOG_CHECKPOINT_INTERVAL* size of IO OS blocks)
is written on the current redo log file.
- Directly by the ALTER SYSTEM SWITCH LOGFILE command.
- Directly with the ALTER SYSTEM CHECKPOINT command.


During a checkpoint the following occurs:
- The database writer (DBWR) writes all modified database
blocks in the buffer cache back to datafiles,
- Log writer (LGWR) updates both the controlfile and
the datafiles to indicate when the last checkpoint
occurred (SCN)

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