Tales From A Lazy Fat DBA

Background Process Explained-
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[oracle@prashant1 2012_09_04]$ ps -ef | grep qrcl
oracle    3219  3176  0 20:31 pts/2    00:00:00 tail -f /u01/app/oracle/admin/qrcl/bdump/alert_qrcl.log
oracle    3545     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_pmon_qrcl
oracle    3547     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_psp0_qrcl
oracle    3549     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_mman_qrcl
oracle    3551     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_dbw0_qrcl
oracle    3553     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_lgwr_qrcl
oracle    3555     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_ckpt_qrcl
oracle    3557     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_smon_qrcl
oracle    3559     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_reco_qrcl
oracle    3561     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_cjq0_qrcl
oracle    3563     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_mmon_qrcl
oracle    3565     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_mmnl_qrcl
oracle    3567     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_d000_qrcl
oracle    3569     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_s000_qrcl
oracle    3573     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_arc0_qrcl
oracle    3575     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_arc1_qrcl
oracle    3579     1  0 20:43 ?        00:00:00 ora_qmnc_qrcl
oracle    3585     1  0 20:44 ?        00:00:00 ora_j000_qrcl
oracle    3589     1  0 20:44 ?        00:00:00 ora_q000_qrcl
oracle    3591     1  0 20:44 ?        00:00:00 ora_q001_qrcl
oracle    4137     1  0 21:05 ?        00:00:00 ora_q002_qrcl
oracle    4162  2694  0 21:06 pts/1    00:00:00 grep qrcl
[oracle@prashant1 2012_09_04]$

SMON :– SMON (System MONitor) is an Oracle background process created when you start a database instance. The SMON process performs instance recovery, cleans up after dirty shutdowns and coalesces adjacent free extents into larger free extents.  SMON wakes up every 5 minutes to perform housekeeping activities. SMON must always be running for an instance. If not, the instance will terminate.

$ ps -ef | grep smon
oracle   31144     1  0 11:10 ?        00:00:00 ora_smon_orcl

PMON (Process MONitor) is an Oracle background process created when you start a database instance. The PMON process will free up resources if a user process fails (eg. release database locks).
PMON is responsible to help listeners to determine if database service and it’s service handlers (Dispatchers) are available through registration.
During registration process PMON provides information like:
– Name of the database service provided by the database
– Service handlers (Dispatchers) available for the instance, including their type, protocol   address and current load details.

PMON normally wakes up every 3 seconds to perform its housekeeping activities. PMON must always be running for an instance. If not, the instance will terminate.
To speed-up housekeeping, one may also wake-up PMON (process 2 below) manually

SQL> oradebug setmypid
SQL> oradebug wakeup 2

MMON (Memory Monitor) is a background process that gathers memory statistics (snapshots) stores this information in the AWR (automatic workload repository). MMON is also responsible for issuing alerts for metrics that exceed their thresholds.  This process was introduced in Oracle 10g.

MMAN (Memory Manager) is a background process that manages the dynamic resizing of SGA memory areas as the workload increases or decreases.
This process was introduced in Oracle 10g.

ARCH (Oracle’s ARCHiver Process) is an Oracle background process created when you start an instance in ARCHIVE LOG MODE. The ARCH process will archive on-line redo log files to an archive destination, typically a directory on the database sever.

DBWR (DataBase WRiter) is an Oracle background process created when you start a database instance. The DBWR writes data from the SGA to the Oracle database files. When the SGA buffer cache fills the DBWR process selects buffers using an LRU algorithm and writes them to disk. From Dirty buffers to Data Files.

LGWR (LoG WRiter) is an Oracle background process created when you start a database instance. The LGWR writes the redo log buffers to the on-line redo log files. If the on-line redo log files are mirrored, all the members of the group will be written out simultaneously.

CKPT (Oracle Checkpoint Process) is an Oracle background process that timestamps all datafiles and control files to indicate that a checkpoint has occurred.
The ckeckpoint process was optional in Oracle 7 (set CHECKPOINT_PROCESS=TRUE) and could be enabled to speed-up checkpointing on databases with a large number of files. Starting with Oracle 8i, the checkpoint process is automatically started with the other Oracle processes at instance startup.

d000 (Dispatchers): Dispatchers are optional background processes, present only when the shared server configuration is used.

QMNC: A queue monitor process which monitors the message queues. Used by Oracle Streams Advanced Queuing.

MMNL Performs frequent and light-weight manageability-related tasks, such as session history capture and metrics computation.
Server Process (Not part of standard Oracle Architecutre) – Writes the data blocks from data file to DB Buffer Cache.

Oracle 11g Architecture (View Online)