Another interesting subject we tested during the seminar was activating a physical standby database for test, reporting, etc.
Usually we are using storage snapshots for this purpose; we mount a storage generated copy of the production database on a report server, perform recovery and use it during the day. The process of resynchronizing the storage copy is repeated each night.
Using a physical standby for the same purpose is possible on 10g when flashback database is enabled on the standby. A guaranteed restore point is created to be able to re-activate and resynchronize the standby when the period of report/testing is over.
This is a powerful feature, worth knowing and using it.
You can find step by step implementation details on this document: