Overview

The Oracle Data Pump is a feature of Oracle 10g and 11g Databases that enables very fast bulk data and metadata movement between Oracle databases. The Oracle Data Pump provides new high-speed, parallel Export and Import utilities (expdp and impdp) as well as a Web-based Oracle Enterprise Manager interface. Data Pump Export and Import utilities are faster than the original Export and Import Utilities. A single thread of Data Pump Export is about twice as fast as original Export, while Data Pump Import is several times faster than original Import.

Unlike previous versions of import/export, the Data Pump jobs execute on the server rather than on the client. The service names used by the Data Pump are dm (master process) and dw (worker process).

The list of features for both the Data Pump import and export can be displayed using the HELP parameter. Example: expdp system/password help=y

Prerequisites

• Create Directory Object
  SQLPLUS> CREATE OR REPLACE DIRECTORY datapump AS 'c:\exports';
  SQLPLUS> GRANT read,write ON DIRECTORY datapump TO system;
• Ensure Oracle user performing Data Pump operation has adequate permissions.
• It is common to include a meaningful job name for all Data Pump operations so as a job can be ideally managed. Some OSs have a problem if hyphens or underscores used in the job name.

Exporting to a Windows UNC Path

To export to a remote Windows system via a UNC path requires the following:

• A dedicated OS account for Oracle. For this example: oradba.
• The oracle user (oradba) is a member of the (local) administrators and ora_dba groups.
• The oracle user (oradba) is used to start both the database service and listener service.

• A local account exists with the same name as the local Oracle user (oradba).
• The oracle user (oradba) is a member of the administrators group.