At a high level, Delphix Virtualization works to efficiently ingest data off of a source host by creating a compressed copy of that data, called a dSource, on the Delphix Engine. From there, the Delphix Engine can easily create multiple virtual databases (VDBs) on a target host with a marginal increase in storage. At the highest level, that is how Delphix Virtualization functions. From an architecture perspective, a few more details are required to explain how an engine interacts with customer infrastructure.
Architectural diagram of a common Delphix deployment (configurations vary depending on RDBMS platforms)
On an infrastructure level, Delphix Virtualization relies on a Source, Staging, and Target Hosts in addition to the Delphix Engine all requiring specific compute requirements (outlined in the platform-specific requirements section). Storage Requirements, like compute, vary by host type and are outlined in subsequent sections. Staging and Target host storage is provided from the Delphix Engine which is mounted over the network similar to any Target host (NFS/iSCSI).