For a heavy transactional system, I'd (like) to try to keep it around
20-30 minutes per switch, but most of the databases I'm dealing with right
now are hybrids.  Basically, lots of reporting all day long with occassional
updates to data (unless they decide to re-calculate the figures during the
day then they get lots of updates--yeah, I know it's not a good thing, but
they had that part designed and implemented before I took over here).  Then
they do batch processing of new data from clients at night (but usually
these clients put off their data entry until the end of the week, and at
some places the end of the month).  Usually this will give me up to 2-3 days
between switches and then during heavy hit times I've tried to plan for it
being in the 15-30 minute range (right now it's about one every 1.5 hours
during high activity, but there will be a lot more clients by the end of the
year).  Like Rodd pointed out, it does make a difference how much time you
can afford to be without data (I have redundant files so I can reload daily
data if worse comes to worse and only have to worry about minor client
updates during the day...although I am working on a strategy to check for
low activity and then switch the logs on a regular basis to help minimize
any recovery burden).  As for upper and lower limits, I've seen databases
switching every 5-6 minutes and not have any problems, but I've seen some
where the redo logs were created too small and when the users hit the system
heavily, the database would cycle through the redo logs all the way to the
one being currently archived.  There are a few variables here, but I
generally follow the advice I got a long time back for this, "Just run
through all the different scenarios and go with the one that makes you feel
least nauseous when you think about it."

Jeffery Stevenson
Chief Databeast Tamer
Medical Present Value, Inc.
Austin, TX


-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 12:32 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L


Ian,
This is one of those where you can get the old "it depends" answer.
What type of database is this?  What level of transaction activity do you 
have?  How big are your redo logs if you switch every 15 min, 20 min, 30
min? 
How critical is recovery to the current time to you?

If you don't want the overhead of lots of log switches and you can stand to 
have a possible loss of 30 minutes of data on a recovery then 2/hr would 
work. (Possiblity of data loss based on losing all logs and mirror logs in a

recovery scenario).

Others may have differing opinions on this, but I normally keep mine running

in the 15-20 minute range.  The overhead difference between 2 switches/hour 
and 3 or 4 per/hour is generally not noticeable.  It makes for smaller 
archives which makes the gzip of the log run faster and take up less cpu 
time.  (I run a cron job that compresses the archived logs to save disk 
space).

On Tuesday 20 March 2001 11:36, you wrote:
>
> Now for an Oracle question.  It is often touted that redo logs should
> switch every 15 minutes to 30 minutes.  Are these the lower and upper
> limits, should the average time to switch logs be within that range, or
> should the median be between that range?
>
> Ian MacGregor
> Stanford Linear Accelerator
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>

-- 
Rodd Holman
Oracle DBA
(605) 988-1373
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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