Introduction
Various Oracle configurations ranging from Oracle RAC to Oracle multi-tenant can be used with Delphix. This article contains an overview of how Delphix works with Oracle.
There are three key concepts when using Delphix with any data platform:
- Environments: The server and software required to run a data set. For Oracle, this will be an operating system host with Oracle instances running on it.
- Source Environment: Source data to be ingested into Delphix. These will be used to create dSources.
- Target Environment: Target hosts to provision VDBs. These need Oracle installations that correspond to the versions of the Source environments, per our Oracle Support Matrix.
- dSources: A database that the Delphix Virtualization Engine uses to create and update virtual copies of your database
- VDBs: A database provisioned from either a dSource or another VDB which is a copy of the source data. A VDB is created and managed by the Delphix Virtualization Engine.
With these concepts in mind, let’s explore how Delphix connects to Oracle environments and creates Oracle dSources and VDBs.
Delphix is not a replacement for an archived log backup solution and should not be relied on to do so. This can cause issues where Delphix is unable to start a vPDB that was plugged into a physical CDB if Delphix is having to determine and deliver the archived logs. You will need to find a separate archived log backup solution workflow to own and be responsible for physical CDB archived logs.
Environment Linking and Provisioning Architecture
As shown in the diagram below Delphix begins by ingesting data from your source databases in order to create dSources. Once you have added an environment, Delphix will automatically ‘discover’ databases on it. This means we are looking for any compatible data sources we could ingest from to create new dSources.
When you specify a dSource to add, we will leverage RMAN and JDBC in order to create snapshots of the source. We continuously monitor the source database for new backups based on your SnapSync and LogSync policies. The result is a TimeFlow with consistent points from which you can provision a VDB, and a faster provisioning process, because there is no need for any database recovery during provisioning.
When you later provision a VDB, you can specify any environment as a target, including the environment that contains the staging database. However, for best performance, we recommend that you choose a different target environment. It must have an operating system that is compatible with the one running on the source environment.