Oracle GoldenGate procedural replication is used to replicate Oracle Database supplied PL/SQL procedures avoiding the shipping and applying of high volume records usually generated by these operations. Procedural replication implements dictionary changes that control user and session behavior and the swapping of objects in dictionary.

Procedural replication is not related to the replication of the CREATE, ALTER, and DROP statements (or DDL), rather it is the replication of a procedure call like:

CALL procedure_name(arg1, arg2, ...);

As opposed to:

exec procedure_name(arg1, arg2, ...)

After you enable procedural replication, calls to procedures in Oracle Database supplied packages at one database are replicated to one or more other databases and then executed at those databases. For example, a call to subprograms in the DBMS_REDEFINITION package can perform an online redefinition of a table. If the table is replicated at several databases, and if you want the same online redefinition to be performed on the table at each database, then you can make the calls to the subprograms in the DBMS_REDEFINITION package at one database, and Oracle GoldenGate can replicate those calls to the other databases.

To support procedural replication, your Oracle Database should be configured to identify procedures that are enabled for this optimization.

To use procedural replication, the following prerequisites must be met:

• Oracle GoldenGate with Extract and Replicat.

• System supplied packages are only working in combination with DML and DDL.