Delete a CDB after migrating its vPDB | Continuous Data 2026.5

This topic describes how to cleanup old timeflows to allow the deletion of virtual and linked CDBs following a vPDB migration.

Prerequisites

The virtual or linked CDB must not have any current vPDBs configured.

Procedure

Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone. You cannot recover deleted objects or their associated data.

In this example, the vPDB has been migrated from a virtual CDB named MYVCDB to a linked CDB named CDOMLOSRE21D.

Now MYVCDB has no attached vPDBs, however it cannot be deleted as there are still timeflows referencing this CDB.

Log into the Delphix command-line interface using the admin user or a user with admin privileges.
```
ssh admin@YOUR_ENGINE
```

List all timeflows for the PDB which has been migrated.

delphix > timeflow 
delphix timeflow> list display=name,reference,cdbTimeflow,container database=MYPDB 

NAME                                 REFERENCE           CDBTIMEFLOW                         CONTAINER 

'SOURCE_ENABLE@2025-08-27T19:07:09'  ORACLE_TIMEFLOW-14  CDOMLOSRE21D/default                MYPDB 

'DB_PROVISION@2025-08-27T18:55:31'   ORACLE_TIMEFLOW-13  'DB_PROVISION@2025-08-27T18:55:30'  MYPDB

Find the CDB for each CDBTIMEFLOW

For example, the MYPDB has two timeflows. Each PDB timeflow is associated with a CDB timeflow. For each PDB timeflow, check which CDB its CDBTIMEFLOW is for.

delphix timeflow> select "CDOMLOSRE21D/default" 

delphix timeflow 'CDOMLOSRE21D/default'> get container 

    CDOMLOSRE21D 

delphix timeflow 'CDOMLOSRE21D/default'> cd .. 

delphix timeflow> select 'DB_PROVISION@2025-08-27T18:55:30' 

delphix timeflow ''DB_PROVISION@2025-08-27T18:55:30''> get container 

    MYVCDB 

delphix timeflow ''DB_PROVISION@2025-08-27T18:55:30''>

Notice that the PDB timeflow DB_PROVISION@2025-08-27T18:55:31, is attached to the CDB timeflow DB_PROVISION@2025-08-27T18:55:30, which is from CDB we want to delete, MYVCDB.

Delete the vPDB timeflow(s) which are associated with the CDB to be deleted.

delphix timeflow> select 'DB_PROVISION@2025-08-27T18:55:31' 

delphix timeflow ''DB_PROVISION@2025-08-27T18:55:31''> delete 

delphix timeflow ''DB_PROVISION@2025-08-27T18:55:31'' delete *> commit 

delphix timeflow>

Delete the CDB.

If the CDB being deleted is a linked CDB, it will be automatically removed from Delphix once there are no attached PDB timeflows.

If it is a vCDB, then it can be manually deleted using the following command:

delphix timeflow> /database 

delphix database> select MYVCDB 

delphix database 'MYVCDB'> delete 

delphix database 'MYVCDB' delete *> commit 

    Dispatched job JOB-86 

    DB_DELETE job started for "Untitled/MYVCDB". 

    Starting deprovision of virtual database "MYVCDB". 

    Unexporting storage. 

    Virtual database "MYVCDB" deprovisioned successfully. 

    DB_DELETE job for "Untitled/MYVCDB" completed successfully. 

delphix database>

Last updated

Oct 9, 2026