RMAN-08137: WARNING: archive log not deleted as it is still needed

Recently my friend raised a discussion for “RMAN-08137: WARNING: archived log not deleted “ .
That make me remind of couple of issues I have faced with archive deletion policy when standby is configured.

Issue discussed is on 3 node RAC database with  on version 11gR2 with 3 node RAC on standby configuration.

We have set Archive deletion to

RMAN> CONFIGURE ARCHIVELOG DELETION POLICY TO APPLIED ON ALL STANDBY;

Case (1) is for the ticket when error RMAN-08137 raised when user is trying to delete archive log using command  “backup archivelog all delete input”.

The error is very informative and it is because archive is not yet applied at Standby Database. Same can be checked with below command on production database:

select dest_id, thread#, sequence#, first_time, completion_time, registrar, archived, applied, deleted, status from v$archived_log where standby_dest='YES' and status='A';

Case (2) is user facing the FRA space, tried to deleted the archive log with below command and surprising archive logs are deleted before even shipped at standby database.

rman> backup archivelog all not backed up delete all input skip inaccessible;

Issue is stated as Bug:16692232 in MOS and One of patch is provided.

I have also faced couples of more cases for the rman-08137 when database is configured with streams replication  and those are because archived logs where still to be used by logminer .