OCP 12C – Basics of Multitenant Container Database (CDB)

Cyrille Modiano
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The multitenant architecture

  • Needs enterprise edition and the multitenant option.
  • Consists of a CDB (Container database) and zero, one or up to 252 PDBs (pluggable databases).
  • Has a root container (the CDB itself) and a seed container (template to create PDBs)
  • There is only one instance per CDB.
  • A PDB doesn’t have :
    • background processes
    • undo tablespace, it uses the CDB’s.
    • redologs, it uses the CDB’s.
    • controlfiles
  • A PDB have :
    • It’s own tablespaces
    • It’s own local users and local roles
    • It’s own metadata
  • A PDB CAN have :
    • a temporary tablespace or can use the CDB temporary tablespace.
    • it’s own Resource Manager Plan or can use the default CDB one.
  • Users can be common users (at the CDB level) or local users (local to a PDB)

Benefits of the multitenant database architecture

Multitenant architecture

  • Reduce storage and resources utilization.
  • Reduce provisioning time with the plug/unplug feature
  • Patching and Upgrading is done only at the CDB level, this reduce maintenance time and management cost.
  • Backups of all PDBs can be done at the same time with RMAN
  • There is only one instance to manage, this implies only one instance to tune.
  • This doesn’t change the way to connect to the database, the multitenant architecture is made for application isolation and you can easily restrict access to a specific PDB to a user.

Create and configure CDBs and PDBs

  • In order to create a CDB you must set the following initialization parameter : ENABLE_PLUGGABLE_DATABASE=TRUE
  • By default only the CDB$ROOT and PDB$SEED are created. Oui and DBCA let you create additional PDBs through the interface.
  • The creation of a PDB can be done in serveral ways :
    • By pluging it to the container
    • By cloning another PDB inside the same CDB : CREATE PLUGGABLE DATABASE NEW_PDB FROM OTHER_PDB;
    • By issuing the : CREATE PLUGGABLE DATABASE NEW_PDB;.
  • When you create a PDB you can choose the admin username and password, this user is granted the PDB_DBA role equivalent to the DBA role in a standard database.

New views, package and parameters

  • The CDB$ROOT, PDB$SEED and each PDB is identified in new views by a CON_ID column. The CON_ID=1 state for the CDB$ROOT and CON_ID=2 for the PDB$SEED.
  • The V$CONTAINERS database list the CDB$ROOT, the PDB$SEED and all the PDBs created. You can view their OPEN_MODE, OPEN_TIME and TOTAL_SIZE.
  • All DBA_ views exist also as CDB_, the CDB_ views include a CON_ID column to identify which container it belongs to.
  • The PDB_FILE_NAME_CONVERT initialization parameter allows you to convert filename when you clone an existing PDB.
  • The DBMS_PDB package can be used to create a metadata xml file which can be used to convert a standard database to a PDB by plugging it into an existing CDB.

Plug, Unplug, Drop a PDB

  • To unplug a PDB you must follow two steps :
    • close the PDB : alter pluggable database mypdb close;
    • unplug the pdb : alter pluggable database mypdb unplug into ‘mypdb.xml’;
  • To plug a PDB you must issue the following command : create pluggable database new_pdb using ‘/tmp/unplugged_pdb.xml’;
  • To drop a PDB you must follow two steps  :
    • close the PDB : alter pluggable database mypdb close;
    • drop the PDB : drop pluggable database mypdb including datafiles;

Convert standard database to PDB

  • Conversion from standard database to PDB is done using the DBMS_PDB package.
  • The dbms_pdb.describe procedure is used to create a metadata file containing information about TABLESPACE, DATAFILES, OPTIONS, PARAMETERS … used by the standard database.
  • Create a PDB in the destination CDB by specifying the XML metadata file generated by previous command.

2 thoughts on “OCP 12C – Basics of Multitenant Container Database (CDB)

  1. Hello, I’m loving your flashcards for the OCP12C revision, they’re helping me a lot but this page “3 – Configuring and Creating CDBs and PDBs” in your flashcards doesn’t appear to exist? It keeps going to page “2 – Basics of Multitenant Container Database (CDB)”. Could you make that page available please?

    Thank you!

    1. Hi Asif,

      it’s because the two flashcards are actually combined in one.
      You have a part in the flashcard named “Create and configure CDBs and PDBs”.

      Cyrille

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