Search Results initiate_fs_failover




Overview
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Overview

SYS.DBMS_DG is an Oracle-supplied system package that provides programmatic control over Data Guard broker operations from within a PL/SQL session. In the context of Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.1 and 12.2.2, this package is not part of the EBS application schema itself; rather, it belongs to the SYS schema and is exposed to the EBS database tier as part of the underlying Oracle Database high availability infrastructure. Its principal business function is to allow an application or administrative session to initiate a Fast-Start Failover of a Data Guard configuration directly, without requiring manual intervention through the Data Guard broker command-line interface. Within an EBS deployment, this capability supports disaster-recovery and business-continuity strategies, where rapid failover of the EBS database to a standby site may be required to preserve availability of critical ERP, financial, and supply-chain processes.

Key Procedures and Functions

The ETRM metadata documents a single callable member of this package:

  • INITIATE_FS_FAILOVER — This function is used by an application to initiate a Fast-Start Failover. The Data Guard broker evaluates whether the configuration is ready to failover and then signals the Observer to perform the failover. The caller supplies a character string describing the reason a Fast-Start Failover has been requested; if a NULL string is passed, a default reason of 'Application Failover Requested' is sent to the Observer. The function returns a BINARY_INTEGER status code.

The documented return codes provide diagnostic information about the outcome of the call. ORA-00000 indicates normal, successful completion. A range of error conditions may be returned, including ORA-16646 (Fast-Start Failover is disabled), ORA-16666 (unable to initiate Fast-Start Failover on a bystander standby database), ORA-16817 (unsynchronized Fast-Start Failover configuration), ORA-16819 (Fast-Start Failover observer not started), ORA-16820 (Fast-Start Failover observer is no longer observing this database), and ORA-16829 (lagging Fast-Start Failover configuration). These codes allow the calling application to distinguish a successful failover request from configuration or observer-related failures. The package is declared with AUTHID CURRENT_USER, meaning that name resolution and privilege checks are performed against the invoking user's schema context.

Tables Accessed

The documented ETRM metadata for SYS.DBMS_DG lists no tables referenced via APPS synonyms, and no underlying data dictionary tables are exposed in the provided excerpt. This is consistent with the package's design: Data Guard broker operations are executed internally by the broker infrastructure and the Observer process rather than through direct DML against application-visible tables. EBS application data is neither read nor written by this interface; its effect is on the database configuration state managed by the broker.

Usage Notes

SYS.DBMS_DG is typically invoked as a low-level building block rather than from standard EBS forms or concurrent programs. Its primary use case is custom availability management code — for example, a wrapper script or scheduled job that calls INITIATE_FS_FAILOVER when monitoring detects a condition warranting failover. The ETRM metadata records that the package is referenced by zero other packages, confirming that it is not integrated into the EBS application object dependency chain. Because it is owned by SYS, appropriate database privileges must be granted to any schema or user permitted to execute it, and the Fast-Start Failover configuration must be properly enabled with an active Observer for the call to succeed. Administrators should treat invocation as a high-impact operation, as it triggers an actual role transition in the Data Guard configuration.