Creating Empty vFiles from the Delphix Engine
Datasets / Unstructured Files and App Data / Creating Empty vFiles from the Delphix Engine

This topic describes the procedure for creating empty vFiles.  This feature is available for unstructured files. “Unstructured files” are a dataset that is treated as simply a directory tree full of files. It is not a database, and it does not receive any special treatment or processing by Delphix. It is just a set of files. You can create vFiles in two ways:

  • provisioning from an existing dataset - that is, from a dSource or from another vFiles or
  • creating an empty vFiles and filling it with data

Creating an empty vFiles places an initially-empty mount on target environments, hence the term "empty vFiles." This mount is useful when you have no existing files to copy into the Delphix Engine, but you do have files that you will generate, track, and copy with vFiles.

vFiles created without dSources are almost identical to those created by provisioning. The only thing you cannot do with them is refresh.  Refreshing a dataset means overwriting the dataset’s content with new data that is pulled in from the dataset’s parent. If you create new vFiles from scratch, that newly-created dataset will not have a parent. Therefore, it cannot be refreshed. All other functionality is identical – you can provision from such a dataset, rewind, take snapshots, and so forth.

Prerequisites

Unstructured Files on Cluster Environments

You cannot create vFiles on any form of the cluster environment, such as an Oracle RAC environment. To create a vFiles on a host that is part of a cluster, add the host as a standalone environment. Then, create the vFiles on this standalone host.

Procedure

To create an empty vFile without provisioning:

  1. Login to the Delphix Management application.
  2. Click Manage.
  3. Select Datasets.
  4. Click the plus icon.
  5. Select Create vFile.
  6. Click Next to go to the Target environment page and do the following:
    1. Under Environment, select a target environment where your empty vFile will be placed.
    2. In the Mount Path field, enter the absolute path where the empty vFile will be mounted.
    3. Click Next.
  7. On the Configuration page, do the following:
    1. In the vFile name field, enter a name for the vFile.
    2. Select a target group for the empty vFile.
    3. Select the Enable auto-restart of the vFile checkbox to allow vFile to be automatically restarted when the target host is rebooted.
    4. Click Next.
  8. On the Policies page, select a Snapshot Policy for the vFile.
  9. (Optional) On the Hooks page, select a hook point and then click + to add a script to run at that point. Click Next.
  10. The Summary page will enable you to review your configurations. Click Submit

After the operation completes, the empty vFile will appear in the Datasets panel.

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