ORA-38701: Flashback database log...

If you are trying to list the restore points you have, and your flashback logs are not available on the disk (in the FRA), you might face ORA-38701.

SQL> select * from v$restore_point; select * from v$restore_point               * ERROR at line 1: ORA-38701: Flashback database log 1 seq 1 thread 1: "/u01/app/oracle/fast_recovery_area/DBMASK/flashback/o1_mf_c4xj2hrd_.flb"

ORA-38760: This database instance failed to turn on flashback database

I faced this error message while opening my database, after restoring the database from a cold backup (OS level copy of all database files). I realized that when I backed up my database, it had flashback feature turned on and there was also a guaranteed restore point at the time I took the backup. And this time when I was trying to open this database, there were no old flashback logs available in fast recovery area.

Data Masking using OEM Cloud Control

Data masking is a technique whereby we mask the sensitive data in the cloned copies of production databases (cloned for testing purposes) so that testing databases don’t contain any sensitive information like credit card numbers or other personal information data like email address or phone numbers etc. Once we create a clone of production database, we mask the data before handing over to the users.

Transparent Data Encryption in 12c

One of my previous article explains how to setup TransparentData Encryption in 11g. In this article I would discuss how to implement Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) in 12c database to encrypt the data in tables/column and tablespace. Following is the link to official 12c documentation I used to write this article https://docs.oracle.com/database/121/ASOAG/asotrans_config.htm#ASOAG10474.