Index on Partitioned Table with Some ReadOnly Tablespaces

Question

We have a warehouse with fact tables range partitioned on date - daily partitions with each month worth of partitions put into a specific monthly tablespace. Each month, we set the prior month's tablespace to READONLY. So our table ends up having data in readonly and read-write tablespaces.
We now have a change we need to make to one of the fact tables - we need to add a new column AND add an index to that column. But because we have partitions in readonly state, Oracle doesn't let us create the index and it also doesn't let us update the local unique key (unique index).
Is there a way we can do this without having to put the tablespaces in read-write mode? As importantly, what happens when we offline or drop some of the older tablespaces (for archiving purposes)? We need to find a way to add the index on just the read-write partitions.
Thanks.

Answer 1

We have a warehouse with fact tables range
partitioned on date - daily partitions with each
month worth of partitions put into a specific monthly
tablespace. Each month, we set the prior month's
tablespace to READONLY. So our table ends up having
data in readonly and read-write tablespaces.
We now have a change we need to make to one of the
fact tables - we need to add a new column AND add an
index to that column. But because we have partitions
in readonly state, Oracle doesn't let us create the
index and it also doesn't let us update the local
unique key (unique index).
Is there a way we can do this without having to put
the tablespaces in read-write mode? As importantly,
what happens when we offline or drop some of the
older tablespaces (for archiving purposes)? We need
to find a way to add the index on just the read-write
partitions.
Thanks.Hi,
Improvements in Oracle 10g to maintain local-partitioned indexes when you use partition DDL commands:
add partition, split partition, merge partiton, move partition.
ALSO, the associated indexes NO LONGER have to be stored on the same tablespace as the table (i.e. answer to your question).
On Oracle 9i: Local indexes are recommended on data warehouse platforms. In an OLTP system, global indexes are more common. On a data data warehouse, problems can be isoloted to one partition, the partitions moved, made r/o (like yours), no local indexes need to be rebuilt
Regarding your issue:
We now have a change we need to make to one of the
fact tables - we need to add a new column AND add an
index to that columnTo maintain the simplicity + functionality of your DW configuration, I think you need to change the TS to R/W, update the objects, then alter to R/O.
fyi
http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/availability/htdocs/online_ops.html