The document discusses implementing a journaling solution for an Oracle database using Flashback Data Archive (FDA) features introduced in Oracle 12c. It describes setting up FDA on a 12c database instance, challenges encountered with privileges, quotas and documentation, and building a custom PL/SQL package to automate FDA administration while avoiding issues. References are provided for further information on Oracle's FDA enhancements.

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I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST
SUMMER… ( IN MY DATABASE )!
About an Oracle database Journal solution
An Oracle DBA’s “journal story”, in a “devops” (architect?) role,
working agile, in a third-party database environment… 

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Oracle Platinum Partner
Awarded 19 excellence
awards in 8 years
9 Oracle ACE Directors and 3
ACE Associates
14 offices worldwide
EPROSEED

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$ WHOAMI
 Marco Gralike
 Principal Consultant
 eProseed SA, NL
 Oracle ACE Director for XMLDB / JSON / DBIM
 marco.gralike@eproseed.com
 Database Beta Test Lead since DB 11.1.0.6
 Database Administrator since DB 6.
 Personal website
 www.xmldb.nl
 www.gralike.com
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WHERE HAVE I BEEN…?
• Daytime:
– Worldwide customers
– eProseed internal environments
• Nighttime:
– If “No Cloud” stuff tonight, then…!
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TRANSPLANT ORGANIZATION
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EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE, EVENTUALLY…
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GOAL FOR THE PROJECT
Rebuilding an old Oracle forms environment (Designer based) into a new
Oracle SOA environment using microservices architecture.
• Limited Licenses (Government org.)
• Easy maintained
• 3 years build (replacing donor, transplant, allocation, matching forms)
• Supporting journaling
– audit on placing, statistics, correct matching
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CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION
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Developer
Workstation
IDE
Build
(Local)
Code
Review
Crucible
(optional)
SonarQube
Testing
TestLink
or
Zephire
Repository
Management
Nexus
Issue
Tracking
System
JIRA
Version
Control
System
Bitbucket
Continuous
Integration
Bamboo
External
Repositories
Apache
Central
Oracle
Maven
Application
Servers
JEE
Specific
scripts
Documentation
Confluence
CI Agent

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DATABASE RELATED
1. User creates SQL or PL/SQL code and drops it in GIT repo
2. Bamboo orchestrates merge and delivers new deployment scripts of all, but also DB
code
3. Via database customer PL/SQL procedure, the scripts are executed in correct order
a) VERSION table is maintained per schema at beginning of execution
b) {…my setup is executed}
c) End of customer procedure
4. Bamboo acts on result
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ARCHITECTURE GOALS - JOURNAL
• Replacing self build journal environment
• Keeping track on all transactions
– Being able to travel back in time (across / in context of table relations)
– What:
• DML (update, insert, delete) / DDL (alter)
– Who / Where & How:
• Hardware and software info, application info, session info, etc.
• KISS
• C.I. supported solution
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OLD JOURNAL ENVIRONMENT
• Approximately 620 tables
• 261 of these are “journal” tables ( *_JN )
• These are populated, maintained via triggers on the original table
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• Production Database
– Single instance
– 12cR2
– Retention time 2 years
– Micro Service application backend
• Content store / BI database
– Single instance
– 12cR2
– Retention time indefinite (def. by law?)
– Audit / checking / reporting
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TECHNICAL - SETUP 12C DATABASE

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• ODA machine
• Single Instance 12cR2
• Third party maintained
• Development done by
– Customer & eProseed
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LOGISTICAL - SETUP 12C DATABASE

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GREAT – NEW FEATURES ORACLE 12.1 FLASHBACK!
• The WHAT
– Oracle 9i Flashback Query functionality
• The WHO/WHERE/HOW
– Oracle 12cR1 new feature functionality
User Context Tracking
Export, Import Table history
Database Hardening / Application Packaging
FDA Optimization (Compression)
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GREAT – NEW FEATURES ORACLE 12.1 FLASHBACK!
• The WHAT
– Oracle 9i Flashback Query functionality
• The WHO/WHERE/HOW
– Oracle 12cR1 new feature functionality
User Context Tracking
Export, Import Table history
Database Hardening / Application Packaging
FDA Optimization (Compression)  additional license (Adv. Compression)
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GREAT – NEW FEATURES ORACLE 12.1 FLASHBACK!
• The WHAT
– Oracle 9i Flashback Query functionality
• The WHO/WHERE/HOW
– Oracle 12cR1 new feature functionality
User Context Tracking
Export, Import Table history (Oracle 12c manual note)
Database Hardening / Application Packaging
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GREAT – NEW FEATURES ORACLE 12.1 FLASHBACK!
• The WHAT
– Oracle 9i Flashback Query functionality
• The WHO/WHERE/HOW
– Oracle 12cR1 new feature functionality
User Context Tracking
Database Hardening / Application Packaging
Not really easy implementing via Continuous Integration supporting
KISS?
Lacking decent documentation
Not really needed, more a nice to have for the future
Instable / strange results?
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GREAT – NEW FEATURES ORACLE 12.1 FLASHBACK!
User Context Tracking
 Bare essentials what we needed anyway
 “Missing” views (dba_* | user_* | cdb_*)
 …like “which tablespace with which flashback archive with which flashback
application name…”
 What to do with multiple flashback archive methods regarding retention times (and
respective flashback different flashback tablespaces)
Grants for SYS base tables and PL/SQL…
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DEMO’S ON THE WEB ALWAYS SUCCEED
WITH THE TEST USER AND DBA ROLE…
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PRIVS – SO FAR…
-- Flashback management / journaling related GRANT SELECT ON sys.dba_sys_privs TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON
sys.dba_role_privs TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON sys.dba_objects TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON
sys.dba_users TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON sys.dba_ts_quotas TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON
sys.dba_flashback_archive_ts TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON sys.sys_fba_app TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT
ON sys.sys_fba_app_tables TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON sys_fba_fa TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON
sys_fba_barrierscn TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON sys_fba_cols TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON
sys_fba_context TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON sys_fba_context_aud TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON
sys_fba_context_list TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON sys_fba_dl TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON
sys_fba_partitions TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON sys_fba_period TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON
sys_fba_trackedtables TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON sys_fba_tsfa TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON
sys_fba_users TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON sys_mfba_nchange TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON
sys_mfba_nrow TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON sys_mfba_ntcrv TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON
sys_mfba_stage_rid TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON sys_mfba_tracked_txn TO CORE_ADMIN;GRANT SELECT ON
fba_config_tables TO CORE_ADMIN; -- Needed for user/process FBA auditing w/PLSQL GRANT EXECUTE ON
dbms_session to CORE_ADMIN;GRANT EXECUTE ON dbms_session to RECIPIENT;GRANT EXECUTE ON dbms_session to
ALLOCATION;GRANT EXECUTE ON dbms_session to BACKBONE;GRANT EXECUTE ON dbms_session to DWH;
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ROLES…
-- Flashback management / journaling related
GRANT FLASHBACK ARCHIVE ON FLASHBACK_DEFAULT TO CORE_ADMIN;
GRANT FLASHBACK ARCHIVE ADMINISTER TO CORE_ADMIN;
GRANT EXECUTE ON DBMS_FLASHBACK_ARCHIVE TO CORE_ADMIN;
GRANT CREATE ANY CONTEXT TO CORE_ADMIN;
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WHAT WILL HAPPEN…?
• USER HAS THE PRIVILEGES TO PUT HIS
OWN TABLE IN FLASHBACK ARCHIVE MODE
• USER HAS NO QUOTA ON THE FLASHBACK
ARCHIVE TABLESPACE
SQL> alter table country flashback archive;
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WHAT WILL HAPPEN…?
• USER HAS THE PRIVILEGES TO PUT HIS
OWN TABLE IN FLASHBACK ARCHIVE MODE
• USER HAS NO QUOTA ON THE FLASHBACK
ARCHIVE TABLESPACE
SQL> alter table country flashback archive;
Table BACKBONE.COUNTRY altered.
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WHAT WILL HAPPEN…?
• USER HAS THE PRIVILEGES TO PUT HIS
OWN TABLE IN FLASHBACK ARCHIVE MODE
• USER HAS NO QUOTA ON THE FLASHBACK
ARCHIVE TABLESPACE
SQL> alter table country flashback archive;
Table BACKBONE.COUNTRY altered.
UNDO TABLESPACE WILL RUN OUT OF SPACE
DATABASE WILL BE STALLED FOR ALL
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BUILDING YOUR OWN
• ONE central package
– That’s why I needed so many sys related privileges
– Build-in instrumentation (thanks to “logger”)
– Avoiding the mentioned issues
– Still a bit hardcoding in it
– Makes use of its own “meta data config table”
– Hoping for Oracle solutions, “version conditioning compilation” setup
• Executed by an ADMIN user (nobody else)
– Enabling all or nothing for every schema part of the application
– Can be used in the Continuous Integration setup
– Makes use of the VERSION table of the customer
• [TABLE_NAME]_LOG views created (scripted) with Flashback Archive Query build-in
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SPECIAL THANKS TO…
• Stefan Oehrli, Trivadis AG
– Great query to find people with UNLIMITED TABLESPACE system privilege or QUOTA on TABLESPACE
• Martin Giffy D'Souza et. All
– Maintaining a great PL/SQL logger debugging, instrumentation, timing and logging framework in
PL/SQL.
– YouTube video
• Tim Hall
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HTTPS://GITHUB.COM/ORAOPENSOURCE/LOGGER
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FEATURE ENHANCEMENTS TO ORACLE
• Do something about the quota tablespace issue
• Do something about the missing views
• Do something about “The audit issue”
 “The audit issue”
A user always can disable his enabled flashback table (because its his/her
own table)… If done so, “lags” will be introduced in history timeline.
• BUGS: Have to report CDB.PDB issue (when cause found)
• ToDo: Create dynamically new Flackback Archive views
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FINAL THOUGHTS
• Simple KISS end solution
• Hopefully the 12.1 new features will be improved
• There went more work into building it, than I hoped for…
• You shouldn’t use it for AUDIT purposes.
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REFERENCES
• Tim Hall
– https://oracle-base.com/articles/12c/flashback-data-archive-fda-enhancements-12cr1
• DBI Services
– https://blog.dbi-services.com/oracle-database-12c-flashback-data-archive-fda-new-features/
• Oracle Documentation
– https://docs.oracle.com/database/121/ADFNS/adfns_flashback.htm#ADFNS1008
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