You enable Flashback Data Archive for a table for which you want to track and save all transactions for four years. After some time, the requirement changes for keeping transactions from four to two…

Question

Options

• AAll historical data older than two years, if any, is purged from the flashback archive FDA1.
• BAn error is returned because the retention period cannot be reduced.
• CAll the flashback data archives are purged and the subsequently created flashback archives
• DAll historical data older than two years, if any, is archived to flashback logs and the flashback

• A
  84% (21)
• B
  8% (2)
• C
  4% (1)
• D
  4% (1)

Explanation

When you reduce the retention period on a Flashback Data Archive using ALTER FLASHBACK ARCHIVE ... MODIFY RETENTION, Oracle immediately purges any historical data that falls outside the new (shorter) retention window - so if data older than two years exists, it is deleted to comply with the updated policy. This is by design: Oracle treats the retention value as a maximum age for stored undo data, and reducing it triggers a cleanup pass.

Why the distractors are wrong:

• B is wrong because Oracle does allow reducing the retention period - there is no restriction preventing a shorter value.
• C is wrong because only the data older than the new threshold is purged; the archive itself and its structure remain intact, and no "subsequently created archives" behavior is triggered.
• D is wrong because purged historical data is not moved to flashback logs - it is simply deleted from the archive, not relocated.

Memory tip: Think of MODIFY RETENTION like trimming a hedge - you cut off everything that exceeds the new height (two years) immediately, and what remains stays in place. Oracle does not "archive the archives"; it just trims the excess.

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