Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 21
Using RMAN on Windows
Microsoft Windows has always been a favorite platform for many people and organizations—for personal and business
applications including Oracle Database. A sizable number of production databases, estimated at about 25 percent by
Oracle Corporation, run on Windows. Needless to say, where there is a production Oracle Database, there is a need to
protect it, and there is a place for RMAN. That's the purpose of this chapter: to help you put the power of RMAN to the
most effective use on the Windows platform.
We will start with a general discussion on Oracle on Windows. Since we have covered some of the Windows-related
issues regarding RMAN in other chapters, you may already be familiar with them. In this chapter, instead of repeating
the content applicable for the Windows environment, we will point out the relevant recipes in other chapters and
mention only the differences or important points to consider.
Understanding Oracle Database Architecture on Windows
Problem
You want to understand the Oracle Database architecture on the Windows platform, especially how it differs from the
architecture on Unix-based systems.
Solution
To begin understanding how to use Oracle on Windows, it's helpful to review the Oracle architecture in general.
Most people look at Oracle on Unix as the general case, and we do the same in this topic. One of the key differences
between Oracle on Unix and Oracle on Windows is that Oracle on Windows is organized into threads rather
than processes.
The Oracle Database Instance
An Oracle instance under Windows is a collection of threads such as the system monitor (SMON), the process
monitor (PMON), the database writer (DBWn), and so on, and a bunch of memory areas, such as a system global area
(SGA) and a program global area (PGA). The SGA is further broken into the database buffer cache, shared pool, and
log buffer memory areas. Figure
21-1
shows the memory structures and threads for the Oracle Database instance
on Windows.
