Active (Current) and Inactive Redo Log Files
Oracle Database uses only one redo log files at a time to store redo records written from the redo log buffer. The redo log file that LGWR is actively writing to is called the current redo log file.
Redo log files that are required for instance recovery are called active redo log files. Redo log files that are no longer required for instance recovery are called inactive redo log files.
If you have enabled archiving (the database is in ARCHIVELOG
mode), then the database cannot reuse or overwrite an active online log file until one of the archiver background processes (ARCn) has archived its contents. If archiving is disabled (the database is in NOARCHIVELOG
mode), then when the last redo log file is full, LGWR continues by overwriting the first available active file.