ORA-01103: when creating a Standby Database on the same Host as the Primary Database

Typically the standby and the primary databases are located on the different hosts to ensure the full DR capabilities. However, there are some situations when you want to have the primary and standby database on the same Host.

Problem #1: You are not able to start two databases with the same SID on the same server.

Problem #2: You cannot change db_name, because it is used in the controlfile and if you try to duplicate the standby database from the primary using different db_name, you will get the following error:

ORA-01103: database name 'orcldgst' in control file is not 'orcldg'

Assume db_name=orcldg and ORACLE_SID for the primary is orcldg1. To solve problem #1 and problem #2, you need to the following steps:

db_name must be the same for both databases. But during startup nomount of the standby database, you need to set ORACLE_SID to the different value:

$ export ORACLE_SID=orcldgst1
$ sqlplus / as sysdba
SQL> startup nomount pfile='/tmp/mypfile.ora'

After that you will be able to run RMAN duplicate command to create the standby database on the same host as the primary.