Oracle Data Base Architecture

System Global Area

SGA having DB Buffer, Shared Pool & Redo Log Buffer.

Database buffer cache

• Used to hold data blocks read from data files.

Redo Log Buffer

 Contains changes made in the database.

Shared Pool

 Contains SQL statements .

Process Global Area PGA

PGA is also called as Oracle Background Processes.
PGA having
LGWR
DBWR
ARCH
PMON
SMON
CKPT

Oracle background processes is the processes behind

the scene that work together with the memories.

LGWR

It writes the redo entries from redo log buffer into the redo
log files. When Redo Log Buffer reach 1/3.
DBWr

Database writer (DBWr) process is used to write data from

buffer cache into the datafiles.
CKPT

Checkpoint (CKPT) is a process to give a signal to DBWr and

LGWR for every 60 sec to writes data in the buffer cache into
datafiles. It will also updates datafiles and control files
header when log file switch occurs.

SMON

System Monitor (SMON) process is used to recover the

system crash or instance failure by applying the entries in
the redo log files to the datafiles.

PMON

Process Monitor (PMON) process is used to check all

processes are correctly started or not. If any of the process is
not started it analyse and try to start that process.
ARCH

The ARCH background process is invoked when your

database is running in ARCHIVELOG mode. If you are
archiving your redo logs, the redo logs are touched by
several background processes. First, the LGWR process
copies the log buffer contents to the online redo log files, and
then the ARCH process copies the online redo log files to the
archived redo log file system on UNIX. The ARCH process
commonly offloads the most recent online redo log file
whenever a log switch operation occurs in Oracle.