Hi Lucas -
So the main issue with PHYSICAL standby databases is that there is
no immediate SQL access, these environments are started in an
effective single-user mode where RMAN is perpetually applying redo
log changes so that the database is an exact replica of the primary
at a block-by-block basis. Debezium requires a connection to the
underlying database for several specific use cases such as temporal
type value conversion, validating the offset position with the
database's archive and redo logs, and others. While none of these
operations write to the database, a read-only connection is
mandatory.
So while you can use OpenLogReplicator in both an online and offline
reader mode; this only applies at the streaming level, but yet there
are data use cases where Debezium may need to make a call back into
the database during value conversion so that we always emit values
uniformly regardless of the adapter we're reading with.
In closing, you could use OpenLogReplicator with Debezium with a
LOGICAL standby with read-only permissions without any issue;
however, PHYSICAL standby environments are not currently supported.
Chris