Oracle 12C Clone creation failed with error ORA-65096

Products

• CA Test Data Manager (Data Finder / Grid Tools)

Issue/Introduction

I've created filesystem for Oracle 12C Linux in vTDM. I've created checkpoint for it using auto-attachment to Oracle Server. 
When I test the connection it tests okay. But when I try to create  the clone CA TDM returns the following error:

Attachment failed Creating Clone Clone_test on filesystem ORCL12C Mounting directory 10.xxx.xxx.xxx:/database/ORCL12C_Clone_test Creating Directory Alias An error occurred during Oracle clone attachment : StatementCallback; uncategorized SQLException for SQL [create user ORCL12C_2121 identified by "clone"]; SQL state [99999]; error code [65096]; ORA-65096: invalid common user or role name ; nested exception is java.sql.SQLException: ORA-65096: invalid common user or role name

Environment

Release:
Component: TDMVDM

Cause

The error you are seeing is related to Oracle and is not specific to vTDM.

The error definition from Oracle is:

ORA-65096: invalid common user or role name

Cause: An attempt was made to create a common user or role with a name that was not valid for common users or roles. In addition to the usual rules for user and role names, common user and role names must start with C## or c## and consist only of ASCII characters.

Action: Specify a valid common user or role name. In my research I found this is a common error when creating users in Oracle 12c and up.
(https://docs.oracle.com/database/121/ERRMG/ORA-60001.htm#ERRMG-GUID-9B78A028-D760-4810-9CFC-9013FBD1FCC9)

I found some useful information from two different websites, which I will share. In short, you need to engage your Oracle DBA to help address this issue.
The below information was taken from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33330968/error-ora-65096-invalid-common-user-or-role-name-in-oracle

In oracle 12c and above, there are two types of databases:

1) container (CDB)

2) pluggable database (PDB).

Therefore, If you want to create a user, you have two possibilities:

1) You can create a container user aka common user Common users belongs to CBD’s as well as current and future PDB’s.
It means it can performed operation in Container or Pluggable according to Privileges assigned. create user c##username identified by password;
 

2) You can create a pluggable user aka local user. Local users is purely database that belongs to only single PDB. This user may have administrative privileges but this only belongs to that PDB. for that, you should connect to pluggable datable like that alter session set container = nameofyourpluggabledatabase; and there, you can create user like usually create user username identified by password; don't forget to mention tablespace, it can be useful during importation. see this for more information about it https://docs.oracle.com/database/121/SQLRF/statements_8003.htm#SQLRF01503

Resolution

Please review the Virtual Test Data Manager (vTDM) Documentation, specifically the "vTDM Architecture" section and the "Copy Data from vTDM Supported Data Sources" section.

vTDM supports only PDB auto-attachment for Oracle 12C.
Therefore, ensure your Oracle 12C database is a PDB (pluggable) database. 

vTDM Considerations

Starting with the TDM 4.5 release of vTDM and above, there are the following generic known limitations:

• Each CA TDM Portal instance supports only one vTDM appliance.
• The vTDM appliance is not designed to be moved to another instance of CA TDM Portal.
• By default, the vTDM appliance disk space is limited to 50GB. Add new disks to the vTDM Appliance to expand the disk space.
• vTDM supports the following databases for automatic attachment of clones to databases:
  
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Oracle 11g (Linux) Enterprise edition
  • Oracle 12c (Linux) Enterprise edition Pluggable
    Note: You can create clones in pluggable databases (PDBs) only. Creating clones in a root container is not supported.
    For more information about different architectures supported for Oracle 12c, refer to How to Copy Data from Oracle Database (broadcom.com).
• For Oracle 11g source database, when creating a checkpoint, Oracle 11g and Oracle 12c are supported as the target database on which the clone is mounted.
• For Oracle 12c source database, when creating a checkpoint, only Oracle 12c is supported as the target database on which the clone is mounted.