What we will learn in this lecture?
▪ What are the Background processes?
▪ The Main purpose of each Background process
DBA 1
Oracle
Background Processes:
bunch of dedicated server-side processes
running in the background
TASKS:
➢ writing database blocks to disk
➢ writing redo entries to disk
➢making sure all of the database files on
disk are synchronized
➢ perform maintenance tasks
DBA 2
Oracle
• Database Writer processes (DBWn )
responsible for writing contents of the database buffers to data files on disk
• Log writer (LGWR)
responsible for writing redo records from the redo log buffering memory into a physical disk
• checkpoint process (CKPT)
This process handles database checkpoints.
An Oracle checkpoint is a database event which synchronizes modified data blocks
in memory from the buffer cache with the data files on disk
• System Monitor process (SMON)
performs recovery during the startup sequence of the Oracle Instance if required.
responsible for cleaning up any unused temporary segments.
• Process Monitor ( PMON)
performs process recovery when a user process or a session fails.
responsible for cleaning up any changes made to blocks in the database buffer cache,
and releasing resources that were previously used by a failed user session.
DBA 3
Oracle
• Recover Process (RECO)
used as part of distributed database transactions.
Distributed transactions are transactions that involve multiple databases, and should either
commit a rollback on both databases at once.
• Listener registration process (LREG)
It is responsible for registering the Oracle instance with the Oracle network listener.
The listener accepting remote incoming user connections
• Archiver process (ARCn)
It is responsible to copy the Oracle redo log files to a remote storage device after a redo log
switch has occurred
Note: Copying the database relogs to another storage system is very important from a backup and
recovery perspective
DBA 4
Oracle