Provisioning an Oracle Virtual Pluggable Database
Delphix Administration / Oracle Environments and Data Sources / Provisioning VDBs from Oracle, Oracle RAC, and Oracle PDB Sources / Provisioning an Oracle Virtual Pluggable Database

This topic describes how to provision a virtual pluggable database (vPDB) from an Oracle pluggable database source (dSource).

Prerequisites

  • You must have done one of the following:
    • linked a PDB dSource from a multi-tenant container database, as described in Linking an Oracle Pluggable Database, or
    • already created a vPDB from which you want to provision another vPDB
  • There must be a target environment that has a compatible multi-tenant container database to host the vPDB you are about to create
  • The multi-tenant container databases (CDBs) of the source PDB and the target that will host the vPDB must meet the following requirements:

    • They must have the same endian format

    • They must be in ARCHIVELOG mode

    • They must have compatible character sets and national character sets, which means:

      • Every character in the source CDB character set is available in the target CDB character set

      • Every character in the source CDB character set has the same code point value in the target CDB character set

    • They must have the same set of database options installed. For example, if the source CDB is a real application cluster (RAC) database, the target CDB must be a RAC database.

  • There shoud be a repository template setup beforehand as per Repository Templates.
  •  This process includes choosing a VDB configuration template as well. This is an absolute requirement for being able to provision from a PDB source to a Virtual PDB (vPDB).

Procedure

  1. Login to the Delphix Admin application.
  2. Click Manage.
  3. Select My Datasets.
  4. In the Datasets panel on the left-hand side, select a PDB dSource or a previously provisioned  vPDB .
  5. Click the TimeFlow tab.

  6. Select a snapshot .
    For more information on provisioning options, see Provisioning by Snapshot or LogSync.

    You can take a snapshot of the source database from which to provision by clicking the Configuration tab, then clicking the Camera icon.

  7. Optional: Slide the LogSync slider to open the snapshot timeline, then move the arrow along the timeline to provision from a point in time within a snapshot.


    You can provision from the most recent log entry by opening the snapshot timeline and then clicking the red Arrow icon next to the LogSync Slider.

  8. Click Provision.
    The Provision VDB panel will open, and the provision target fields Installation Home, Container Database, Database Name, Mount Base, and Environment User will auto-populate. Information from the selected target environment will be highlighted on the left-hand pane. 
  9. For each selected Installation Home, there can be more than one Container Database. Use the drop-down menu to further select which Container Database you are about to provision to host your vPDB.
  10. Review the information for Installation Home, Container Database, and Database Name. Change or edit as necessary.
  11. Review the Mount Base and Environment User and edit as necessary.
    The Environment User must have permissions to write to the specified Mount Base, as described in Requirements for Oracle Target Environments and Databases. You may also want to create a new writable directory in the target environment with the correct permissions, and use that as the Mount Base for the VDB.
  12. If you want to use login credentials on the target environment other than those associated with the Environment User, select Provide Privileged Credentials.
  13. Click Advanced to enter any file mappings setting for your vPDB.
    For more information, see Customizing VDB File Mappings.
  14. Click Next.
  15. Enter the VDB Name for the vPDB you are about to provision.
  16. Select a Target Group for the VDB.
    1. If you need to add a new group, click the green Plus icon.
  17. Select a Snapshot Policy for the VDB.
    1. If you need to create a new policy, click the green Plus icon.
  18. Click Next.
  19. Enter any operations that should be run at Hooks during the provisioning process.
    For more information, see Customizing Oracle Management with Hook Operations.
  20. Click Next.
  21. Review the provision summary. Click Finish to proceed with provisioning the vPDB.

When provisioning starts, you can review progress of the job in the Datasets panel, or in the Job History panel of the Dashboard. When provisioning is complete, the VPDB will be included in the group you designated, and listed in the Datasets panel. If you select the VPDB in the Datasets panel and click the Configuration tab, you can view information about the database and its Data Management settings.

The container database of the vPDB will be automatically linked if it has not been linked already.

Temporary CDB Instance

During vPDB provisioning, the Delphix Engine creates a temporary CDB instance in the target environment to recover the vPDB to a consistent state. This temporary CDB will be automatically deleted after the vPDB is provisioned successfully.

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