ALTER TABLE, FALLBACK, and Read From Fallback - Advanced SQL Engine - Teradata Database

SQL Data Definition Language Detailed Topics

Product
Advanced SQL Engine
Teradata Database
Release Number
17.10
Published
July 2021
Language
English (United States)
Last Update
2021-07-27
dita:mapPath
imq1591724555718.ditamap
dita:ditavalPath
imq1591724555718.ditaval
dita:id
B035-1184
lifecycle
previous
Product Category
Teradata Vantage™

Fallback is very important when a system needs to reconstruct data from fallback copies if a hardware read error occurs when it attempts to read the primary copy of the data. When a read error occurs in this case, the file system reads the fallback copy of the rows and reconstructs a memory-resident image of them on their home AMP. This is referred to as Read From Fallback. See Teradata Vantage™ - Database Design, B035-1094.

Without this feature, the file system fault isolation logic would abort the transaction and, depending on the error, possibly mark the table as being down. See SET DOWN and RESET DOWN Options. Support for Read From Fallback is limited to the following cases:
  • Requests that do not attempt to modify data in the bad data block
  • Primary subtable data blocks
  • Reading the fallback data in place of the primary data.

    In some cases, Active Fallback can repair the damage to the primary data dynamically. In situations where the data block cannot be repaired, Read From Fallback substitutes an error-free fallback copy of the corrupt rows each time the read error occurs.

    To avoid the overhead of this substitution, you must rebuild the primary copy of the data manually from the fallback copy using the Table Rebuild utility. For information about Table Rebuild, see Teradata Vantage™ - Database Utilities, B035-1102.