Note 23345 revised - so what?

Last week I edited note 23345 and after a some additional administrative tasks it had been released yesterday with version 61.
Why do I tell you this and why do I write a blog about this?

I do that because note 23345 is not just any other note, but it's one of the most used Oracle notes.
With every evaluation of the topnotes, this one is among the top ten Oracle notes.
The reason for that is simple: note 23345 is about "Consistency check of Oracle databases".

This note had been around since 1995 and was last changed in january 2007.

Basically it contained information about three different approaches to check the database consistency.
These different check options were more or less well understood and did what we expected them to do.

Time to change!

However, time moves on and technology evolves.
Since many years other check options and tools are available that allow quicker and easier check options but had only rarely been used by customers and support.

The current version of the note now covers (among other topics):

• consistency checks with RMAN
• restartability for ANALYZE checks
• detailed descriptions of the BR*TOOLS commands and the corresponding
  Oracle-tool syntax
• clear recommendations on how to check the database in case a
  corruption already occured as well as what checks to run for
  normal system operations

The described techniques and recommendations do differ from the old version and replace them.
So, it's time to review your own procedures and to make sure you're up to date with how to check the database consistency!

But, you're stuck with the old stuff... !?

One additional comment that seems to be necessary given the many customer questions we get for this:
"We don't use RMAN/we don't have RMAN/we never used RMAN - so how can we use it?"

As a matter of fact, there are NO setup procedures necessary to use RMAN for the consistency check.
RMAN is delivered and installed by default and it's usage is fully covered by SAP's BR*TOOLS.

There is NO reason for not using RMAN - so don't hesitate and try it out on your systems today!

Hope you like the new note and the additional options the newly described check features provide.