Under normal operation, target database brokers are shut down during recovery transition.

Online manual recovery transition changes this behavior to enable target database brokers to remain in operation during manual recovery transition. This functionality enhancement substantially reduces transition time, which works to decrease database downtime during both disaster recovery and routine maintenance.

By default, target database brokers will remain online during online manual recovery transition for both single-target and replication-set enabled replication databases, as well as with AI Streaming.

Prior to the transition, all clients will be disconnected and logins to the target database disabled.

To transition the database:

  1. Properly configure the transition properties. See Set transition properties for details.
  2. Use the following command to perform transition:
    dsrutil target-db-name -C transition

Unless restart-after-transition is disabled, the newly transitioned database will remain online with Replication running in its new role after the online recovery transition completes.

Under normal operation, database buffer pools are reallocated after transition during database startup. Online manual recovery transition changes this behavior. As a performance improvement, database buffer pools will be transitioned to the new source, and data for applications reconnecting after transition will be immediately accessible without the need to repopulate the data from disk.

Notes

The following behavioral changes apply to manual recovery transition during online transition:

  • All databases in a replication set must be online before the recovery transition begins
  • After-imaging must be enabled before or during transition on the target database for the target to become a new source database.
  • Properties auto-begin-ai and auto-add-ai-areas must be enabled, an ai-structure-file designated, and AI enable, including adding AI extents, online if AI has not been enabled on the target.
  • If a recovery backup of the target database is configured, the backup must be performed online.
  • Truncate BI will not be performed.

Database backups during online transition

The following backup methods may be used during online recovery:
  1. The mark backup method may be used to mark the database as backed up by using the following command:
    rfutil db-name -C mark backedup
  2. The full-offline backup method is not allowed with online recovery transition.
  3. The full-online backup method may be used before the Replication plugin is started for the new role, which occurs at the end of the online recovery transition.