Oracle provides the Database Upgrade Assistant (DBUA) to automate the upgrade process and makes appropriate recommendations for configuration options such as tablespaces and redo logs. The DBUA also provides support for Real Application Clusters (RAC) and Automatic Storage Management (ASM).
One of the options of DBUA is to temporary switch to NOARCHIVELOG mode during the upgrade to speed up the upgrade. However if the database has an associated standby database, then switching on NOARCHIVELOG will invalidate the standby database with Oracle SE and SE1. In Oracle EE, the redo logs can be used by Data Guard to keep the standby database up to date and this may not be an issue.
The reason that it invalidates the standby database is that there will be a gap in the archivelogs during NOARCHIVELOG and the standby database requires all archives logs in sequence to keep the standby database up to date.
Example:
During an upgrade with DBUA the database was switched to NOARCHIVELOG mode as can be seen from the following query:
SQL> select sequence#,name from v$archived_log where sequence#>4380; SEQUENCE# NAME 4381 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\2011_10_23\O1_MF_1_4381_7B5PN1LT_.ARC 4382 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\2011_10_23\O1_MF_1_4382_7B5T4KQK_.ARC 4383 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\2011_10_23\O1_MF_1_4383_7B5XO1LJ_.ARC 4384 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\2011_10_23\O1_MF_1_4384_7B615KV4_.ARC 4385 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\2011_10_23\O1_MF_1_4385_7B64P1KQ_.ARC 4386 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\2011_10_23\O1_MF_1_4386_7B686KYQ_.ARC 4387 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\2011_10_23\O1_MF_1_4387_7B6CQ1D2_.ARC 4388 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\2011_10_23\O1_MF_1_4388_7B6H7O6B_.ARC 4389 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\2011_10_23\O1_MF_1_4389_7B6KST7V_.ARC 4402 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\ARC0000004402_0749585225.0001 4403 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\ARC0000004403_0749585225.0001 4404 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\ARC0000004404_0749585225.0001 4405 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\ARC0000004405_0749585225.0001 4406 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\ARC0000004406_0749585225.0001 4407 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\ARC0000004407_0749585225.0001 4408 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\ARC0000004408_0749585225.0001 4409 E:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\PCSJP\ARCHIVELOG\ARC0000004409_0749585225.0001
The logs for sequence 4390-4401 have been not been generated. This means that the standby database cannot be kept up to date. Since the archive logs are not created by Oracle, and you cannot skip archive logs with a standby database, it means the standby database has to be rebuild.
Re-creating the standby database can be easily done with Dbvisit Standby.
Recommendation
Do not switch on NOARCHIVELOG mode during a database upgrade, as this may invalidate your standby database.
When upgrading an Oracle database that has an associated standby database, we recommend the following approach is followed: Upgrading or patching Oracle with a standby database.
