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Thread: Shutdown vs. Win NT Server reboot

  1. #1
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    Shutdown vs. Win NT Server reboot

    We have a system administrator who insists on rebooting Oracle servers by switching them on and off. This causes the DBs to crash and then they restart as the Windows services autostart them.

    I have asked that he tells me he intends to do so I can cleanly shutdown the databases but he presses on regardless. Management know this but as the databases always restart they are content to let him continue.

    Where can I find some concrete documentation or evidence that I can present to him about the dangers of doing this? I can tell him its potentialy dangerous til i'm blue in the face, I need it in black and white...

  2. #2
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    Oracle is designed to endure this kind of treatment. I would guess the biggest risk is that the NT OS would get skrewed up (it shouldn't but . . . . Jeff, stop laughing!).

    Could your SysAdmin be sure of reinstalling the OS & Oracle soft without touching the db, so that instance recovery could take place on restart?

  3. #3
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    I agree with Dapy and I believe the DB should not crashed but do an immediate shutdown : this is if the register key ORA_SID_SHUTDOWN is set to true, if ORA_sid_SHUTDOWNTYPE is set to i and if ORA_SIVU_SHUTDOWN_TIMEOUT is set high enough to allow the DB to shudown.

    Still, your admin has probably listen a bit too carrefully to the advice which states that when runing Windows, you should reboot. When ? all the time !

    The thing is that you empty all the your nice records you have been gathering in memory each time you restart - and that is a serious performance problem.
    Now, maybe, he has good reasons to reboot to put in the balance....
    If there is no solution, it is because there is no problem - Shadok -

  4. #4
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    Originally posted by yanban
    . . . . when runing Windows, you should reboot. When ? all the time !
    My experience suggests this rebooting lark is overrated.

    3-4 years ago I was running a Lotus Notes server under NT4.0 SP4 - that had to be rebooted at least every two weeks because of probs with the IP stack. That was fixed with SP5.

    Since then a colleague ran a DWH (Business Objects, Access, MS SQL-Server and ODBC to AS/400/DB2) for over 9 months before he felt he should reboot - nothing actually went wrong.

    When I have thrown off the users for an application upgrade (about every 6-8 weeks) and if I find I have time, I:
    1) sacrifice a pidgeon
    2) pour wine on the ground
    3) reboot the server
    I have had no probs with the OS for years (touch wood) - I'm not sure which of the above that is due to . . . .

  5. #5
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    Re: Shutdown vs. Win NT Server reboot

    Originally posted by JMac
    We have a system administrator who insists on rebooting Oracle servers by switching
    them on and off.
    [lame remark]I would worry more over the fact that you administrator switches your server on and off....[/lame remark]

    To be serious: if you follow yanban's advise, you don't have much problems. We had some server problems a while ago and the server had to be rebooted a number of times a day and the database survived.
    An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.

  6. #6
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    I'll have to check the ORA_xxxx_SHUTDOWN params as I think they are not said as they should be. The DB does crash as the alert log indicates with its 'recobery' startup:

    alter database open
    Beginning crash recovery of 1 threads
    Wed Dec 03 10:06:52 2003
    Thread recovery: start rolling forward thread 1
    Recovery of Online Redo Log: Thread 1 Group 3 Seq 8250 Reading mem 0
    Mem# 0 errs 0: F:\ORACLE\SPR1\SPR1_REDO03.LOG
    Mem# 1 errs 0: E:\ORACLE\SPR1\SPR1_REDO03.LOG
    Wed Dec 03 10:06:53 2003
    Thread recovery: finish rolling forward thread 1
    Thread recovery: 48 blocks read, 42 blocks written
    Crash recovery completed successfully
    Picked broadcast on commit scheme to generate SCNs
    Wed Dec 03 10:06:54 2003
    Thread 1 advanced to log sequence 8251
    Thread 1 opened at log sequence 8251
    Current log# 1 seq# 8251 mem# 0: F:\ORACLE\SPR1\SPR1_REDO01.LOG
    Current log# 1 seq# 8251 mem# 1: E:\ORACLE\SPR1\SPR1_REDO01.LOG
    Successful open of redo thread 1.
    Wed Dec 03 10:06:54 2003
    SMON: enabling cache recovery
    SMON: enabling tx recovery
    Wed Dec 03 10:06:56 2003
    Completed: alter database open

  7. #7
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    Hi yanban, (working on the principle that there are no dumb questions) . . . what unit is ORA_SID_SHUTDOWN_TIMEOUT specified in? The default I have is 30 - seconds or minutes? The doc does not want to tell me . . .

  8. #8
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    Originally posted by DaPi
    what unit is ORA_SID_SHUTDOWN_TIMEOUT specified in?
    Hi,

    Metalink states that's in second :
    http://metalink.oracle.com/metalink/...&p_id=136214.1
    If there is no solution, it is because there is no problem - Shadok -

  9. #9
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    I though it had to be. 30 seconds looks a bit optimistic for anything other than the ORCL demo database!

    N.B this from yanban's link:
    "Please also note there is another WindowsNT parameter called: "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" found in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control expressed in microseconds (1000 microseconds make one second). This timeout should ALSO be set high enough to give the database time to complete the shutdown (the default is 20000). Contact Microsoft for more information about this parameter."
    Last edited by DaPi; 12-15-2003 at 09:32 AM.

  10. #10
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    Presumably all this ORA_SID_SHUTDOWN_ stuff is irrelevant if he is just hitting the power button ! ?

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