FP1: Read operations on HADR standby databases are supported

Starting with Version 9.7 Fix Pack 1, you can perform read operations on your High Availability and Disaster Recovery (HADR) standby database.

Previously, use of the HADR standby database was limited to replaying the logs shipped from the primary database, and user applications could not connect to the standby database. The new functionality does not affect the primacy of log replay, so the standby continues to remain constantly ready to take over the regular database workload from the HADR primary in the case of an outage.

The main benefit of the reads on standby capability is that it improves the utilization of the HADR standby. You can run queries on the standby if they do not entail the writing of a log record. By shifting various workloads to the HADR standby, you can freeing up resources to perform more work on the primary. You can also use the standby for reporting functions.