Some Oracle utilities use the value TNS_ADMIN to locate network configuration files. This directory is defined as ORACLE_HOME/network/admin. It typically contains tnsnames. ora, listener.ora, and sqlnet.ora Oracle Net files. The listener.ora files are now typically with the Oracle grid installation and not in the database home. The listeners are normally maintained by the system that manages the grid, cluster, and ASM software. The tnsnames provide ways to connect to other databases, so these files are part of the centralized directory or part of the database network files.
Fast Recovery Area Directory
Backup and recovery are important to any data you have in your enterprise, and they are important tasks for a DBA. We will spend plenty of time on recovery and backup procedures later in the book, but the initial plan of backup and recovery should be included here as part of your installation and database creation. The Fast Recovery Area (FRA) is set up to have the control files, backup files, archive log files, image copies, and flashback. The FRA can be just a directory on your server or a diskgroup in ASM but is a critical directory to have for secure backups to recover from. Figure 1-3 shows this directory as part of the installation screen and is found in the parameter db_recovery_ file_dest for the database.
Figure 1–3. Oracle Fast Recovery Area directory
More on OFA is included in the appendix of the Oracle Database Installation Guide, and as you can see, the directories are part of the initial installation and planning. Other subdirectories are created by the Oracle installation, and the values can be found in the database parameters.