Redefining Oracle Database Management

(1)

Actifio

™

PAS Specification

Redefining

Oracle Database

Management

A Single Solution for Backup, Recovery,

Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity and

Rapid Application Development for Oracle.

(2)

| actifio.com | Redefining Oracle Database Management 2

Introduction

This document is intended to provide a detailed understanding of how customers can utilize Actifio Copy Data Storage for Oracle database management to eliminate redundant silos of infrastructure and radically simplify the operational process. The end result: customers can reduce cost by up to 10X.

Traditional Oracle Data

Management Approach

Oracle databases form the core of many companies business information systems. Protecting this data and making it accessible whenever needed has traditionally been a complex and expensive IT operation. The legacy Oracle database management approach is to deploy complex, expensive infrastructure silos-- built with point tools for backup, disaster recovery, business continuity, test & development, analytics, compliance or other applications—resulting in too many redundant copies of data. Figure 1 highlights the typical infrastructure deployed to backup, provide disaster recovery and create test and development copies of Oracle Databases.

To illustrate the inefficiencies of the legacy approach, let’s examine a case study for an Oracle environment with 20 TB of production storage and the following business requirements:

• Database backups daily, retaining daily backups for 1 month and weekly backups for 2 months

• All backups are replicated to a remote site for Disaster Recovery • Point in time copies are created for rapid test and development • Database replication to a remote site for Business Continuity

Oracle databases form the core

of many companies business

information systems. Protecting

this data and making it accessible

whenever needed has traditionally

been a complex and expensive

IT operation.

(4)

The various components in this architecture are: 1 . RMAN software to backup the database to disk.

2 . Backup software to store the RMAN backups for long-term retention using tape or a de-duplication device. Backup software may also be directly integrated with RMAN in some cases.

3 . A de-duplication disk device or a tape library to store data for local recovery

4 . A second de-duplication disk device or offsite tape storage facility at a remote site to provide Disaster Recovery

5 . A pair of WAN optimization devices to transport the backup data between the de-duplication devices

6 . Array-based cloning or snapshot software to create point-in-time copies for test and development

7 . A second disk storage system of the exact same type, from the same vendor, and using at least the same capacity as the production storage system for storing replicated data.

8 . Array remote replication software to transport data between the two disk storage systems.

9 . A pair of WAN optimization devices to transport the data between the two disk storage systems.

The resulting storage footprint for this traditional configuration would be as follows:

• An additional 10 TB of local storage capacity on the primary storage system to store snapshots

• 30 TB of remote storage capacity to store the replicated data and snapshots

• 60 TB of storage on the local deduplication appliance for long-term retention

• 60 TB of storage on the remote deduplication appliance for long-term retention

Figure 2 summarizes the relative costs of various software tools required and the storage footprint associated with each of these tools. In this typical scenario, a 20 TB database environment requires 160TB of copy data storage, making the cost of managing the copy data well over 5 times the cost of the production environment. Figure 3 shows the logical view of the multiple tools and data stores used in a traditional configuration. $$$$$ Business Continuity Business Continuity Test & Dev

Backup Production Production Backup DR Legacy Approach Capacity (TB) Actifio DR Test & Dev

160

80

20

$$$

FIGURE 2 STORAGE FOOTPRINT AND RELATIVE COSTS

OF LEGACY APPROACH

FIGURE 3 LOGICAL VIEW OF TRADITIONAL ORACLE

(5)

FIGURE 4 VIRTUAL DATA PIPELINE ARCHITECTURE

1 . COPY Most efficient and scalable data capture . Block-level,

incremental snapshot with change block tracking

2 . STORE Independent copy with multiple formats, any storage device . Raw format for

instant restore, optimized format for longer retention

Storage virtualization for private, public or hybrid cloud storage

3 . MOVE Dedup AsyncTM_{to drive}

down network usage 4 . RESTOREinstant “mount” App-aware to any host . Maintains temporal

and causal relationship between the objects

FIGURE 5 ACTIFIO FOR ORACLE DATABASE MANAGEMENT

IN NETWORK CONFIGURATION

Applying Actifio’s Virtual Data

Pipeline to Oracle Database

Management

Actifio’s copy data storage delivers the industry’s most efficient technology for Oracle Database management, radically simplifying the IT infrastructure while driving down both capital and operating expenses. Actifio lets businesses manage and recover anything instantly, for up to 90 percent less. Actifio eliminates siloed data protection applications, virtualizing data management to deliver an application-centric, SLA-driven solution that decouples the management of data from storage, network and server infrastructure. Actifio has helped liberate IT organizations and service providers of all sizes from vendor lock-in and the management challenges associated with exploding data growth.

Actifio created the Virtual Data Pipeline (VDP) technology to virtualize all copies of production data, eliminating redundancies and re-purposing the unique data for multiple data management applications.

Virtual Data Pipeline Technology

(6)

tools and be used as a platform for search, compliance and analytics tools.

Thanks to VDP, Actifio efficiently captures a copy of changed data from the database and reuses the data for multiple applications, allowing the applications to directly access data from Actifio Copy Data Storage without any data movement.

The following sections describe the two different configurations for using Actifio in an Oracle Database environment—Network Configuration and In-Band Configuration.

Network Configuration

In the Network Configuration in Figure 5, Actifio is connected through the IP network, with RMAN directly writing to copy data

store presented by Actifio copy data storage to the database server. In this implementation Actifio is a single solution for Backup, Disaster Recovery and for Test and Development applications.

Point-in-time copies of a database are immediately available for use either at the local site or at the remote site, enabling collaborative development.

In this configuration, Actifio stores image backups of the database and changes to the base image, requiring significantly less capacity than the traditional “full” database backups stored by backup software. Test and development teams can directly leverage the image backup data for instant creation of point-in-time copies using Actifio restore.

This approach not only eliminates the need to use the expensive production storage system to store snapshot copies but also reduces the load on the primary storage controller by 30%, improving application performance. Actifio uses RMAN Incrementally Updated Backups, rolling forward image copy backups. Oracle’s Incrementally Updated Backup feature lets you create an image copy of a data file, then regularly create

incremental backups of your database and apply them to that image copy. The image copy is updated with all changes up through the system change number (SCN) at which the incremental backup was taken. RMAN can use the resulting updated data file in media recovery just as it would use a full image copy taken at that SCN, without the overhead of performing a full image copy of the database every day.

A backup strategy based on incrementally updated backups can help minimize the time required for media recovery of user’s database. This strategy ensures that at recovery time, no more than one set of redo logs needs to be applied at any time.

Table 1 summarizes Actifio Oracle database management, based on Oracle’s RMAN Incrementally Updated Backups. Here, T0 is the first time the backup is performed and Tn is the nth time. Users can configure the SLA to have as many backup copies as needed per day.

$$$$$

Business Continuity

Business Continuity Test & Dev

Backup Production Production Backup DR Legacy Approach Capacity (TB) Actifio DR Test & Dev

160

80

20

$$$

FIGURE 6 COMPARABLE COSTS FOR ACTIFIO

TIME RMAN ACTIONS ACTIFIO PAS ACTIONS

T0 Create level 0 Full backup. • Level 0 Full image copy backup, with SCN as of T0. Keep as base snapshot in Snapshot Pool. • Move a copy of the full image into DeDup pool for long term retention as base copy.

T1 Level 1 incremental backup, moving only the blocks that changed since T0.

• Update the T0 backup image with the changes from T1 to create a new full image with SCN of T1. • Take incremental snapshot of the new image, capturing changed blocks in Snapshot Pool. SLA may

also cause these blocks to move into DeDup Pool.

Tn Level 1 incremental backup, moving only the blocks that changed since Tn - 1.

• Update the (Tn - 1) backup image with the changes from Tn to create a new full image with SCN of Tn. • Take incremental snapshot of the new image, capturing changed blocks in Snapshot Pool. SLA may

also cause these blocks to move into DeDup Pool .

(7)

The net result is that Actifio always has the full image copy of the database, as of the latest backup and a trail of changes are stored either in the Snapshot Pool or the DeDup Pool, based on the SLA. Restoring a database is now instantaneous, with the process simply involving mounting the database image to a server.

The process of restoring a database to any point-in-time is as follows: 1 . Restoring current version of the database: Use the last backed

up image copy of the database in Actifio and roll forward using the logs on the production server.

2 . Restoring a point-in-time version of the database: Use a backed up image copy of the database from a point-in-time snapshot in the Snapshot pool. Required data may already be in the Snapshot pool or may need to be rehydrated from the DeDup pool. Optionally apply archived redo logs from subsequent backups. Combining RMAN’s Incrementally Updated Backup capability with Actifio delivers unprecedented flexibility in managing databases. User’s can have a nearly unlimited number of backups per day, providing unprecedented RPO flexibility and instant restore, reducing RTO for use by any application: data protection, disaster recovery, business continuity or test and development.

Figure 7 shows the logical view of Actifio’s Virtual Data Pipeline technology.

Backup operations

Actifio performs a deep discovery of an Oracle database using Oracle commands and APIs, identifies the layout of the database, and prepares backup storage to suit this layout. Actifio then presents copy data storage volumes to the Production server to facilitate efficient data movement. All Oracle storage formats are supported, including raw volumes, file systems, and ASM.

For the first backup, Actifio uses RMAN to create an image backup of the selected portions of the production database. The underlying RMAN operation used is a “RMAN Image copy feature”. This approach creates a consistent, point-in-time image of the database on the Actifio copy storage. This image is managed by Actifio through its virtualization primitives so that it is protected and replicated to remote Actifio systems as specified by user-defined Service Level Agreements.

For subsequent backups, the database image copy is incrementally updated to the current point-in-time state using the RMAN “Image copy incrementally updated backups” primitives. This method leverages

the change tracking capabilities that are built into Oracle 10g and 11g to move only the data that has been updated since the last backup. After this command completes, the incremental changes are copied and then applied to the previous image backup. The resulting virtual full image copy can have an independent life cycle from the earlier image. Older images can also be retained and expired to meet the Service Levels with no impact on subsequent backups.

FIGURE 7 ARCHITECTURE OF ACTIFIO VIRTUAL DATA PIPELINE

Actifio’s incremental-forever

architecture eliminates large data

movements from the capture process.

This approach significantly reduces

the amount of time required to capture

changes made to the production

(8)

FIGURE 8 IN-BAND CONFIGURATION FOR ORACLE DATABASE MANAGEMENT

Restore operations

Actifio performs restore operations by presenting the selected backup image to the production server. For an in-place restore, data is copied from the backup image back to the production storage at table space or finer granularity. For an instant restore, the RMAN switch command is used to bring up the database instance against the mounted image.

In-Band Configuration

The In-Band configuration works similarly to the network configuration except that Actifio is configured within the SAN fabric, monitoring the traffic between the database application and the SAN disk storage system. Therefore the initial capture of application data and capture of incremental changes are done using volume based snapshot instead of RMAN backup. In this configuration, in addition to Backup, Disaster Recovery and Test and Development applications, Actifio can also provide business continuity by providing real-time replication—either sync or async—of the production database storage. Users can use heterogeneous disk storage systems on the two sides. The storage systems can be based on performance, capacity and/or cost, rather than vendor.

This unique In-Band Configuration capability of Actifio centralizes all copies of data and virtualizes how the data is reused for multiple business applications and is the industry’s most efficient and radically simple way of managing Oracle Databases. The figure below illustrates the architecture of in-band deployment.

With the in-band architecture, Actifio not only manages all of the copies of the database but also replicates the data to the remote site for business continuity. Replicated data can now be stored on significantly lower cost of storage, further driving down the overall storage infrastructure costs.

Actifio Benefits Summary

Table 2 summarizes the big picture of Actifio operations and benefits versus the traditional Oracle database management tools.

Instant Backup for Big Data

Actifio’s incremental-forever architecture eliminates large data movements from the capture process. This approach significantly reduces the amount of time required to capture changes made to the production environment, as full database backups are no longer required. In addition, Actifio copy data storage can leverage 8 Gb Fiber Channel connections to copy these changes from the production environment extremely efficiently. While an efficient architecture is always beneficial, it can be vital for VLDB environments. By eliminating full backups and transferring changes efficiently, Actifio can drastically reduce RPOs for even the largest database environments.

Instant Access

(9)

Support Listing

All Oracle™ databases and configurations are support by Actifio copy data storage. For additional details please contact Actifio at [email protected].

About Actifio

Actifio is radically simple copy data management. Our copy data storage lets businesses manage and recover anything instantly, for up to 90 percent less. Actifio eliminates siloed data protection applications, virtualizing data management to deliver an application-centric, SLA-driven solution that decouples the management of data from storage, network and server infrastructure. Actifio has helped liberate IT organizations and service providers of all sizes from vendor lock-in and the management challenges associated with exploding data growth. Actifio is headquartered in Waltham, Mass., with offices around the world. For more information, please visit www .actifio .com or email info@actifio .com .

TABLE 2: ACTIFIO PAS - THE BIG PICTURE

OPERATION ACTIFIO TRADITIONAL ACTIFIO NOTES

Backup Actifio Local System • Backup Software

• DeDuplication Device 1

• WAN Optimizer 1 (for DR)

• Near Zero RPO and RTO

• Combine the Power of Snapshot and long term dedup retention

• Snapshot + Backup Software + DeDup Device + WAN optimizer Disaster Recovery Actifio Remote System • Deduplication Device 2

• WAN Optimizer 2

• Seamless access to Remote Data locally and on remote site

• Independent retention period

• No WAN Optimizer needed Test and Dev. Actifio Actifio Local System • SnapShot licence or

• Specialized Test and Dev. tool

• Additional Storage

• Instant reuse of backup/DR data for Test and Dev. copies

• Rewritable Test and Dev. copies Business Continuity • Actifio Remote System

• Additional Storage

• Array Replication License

• WAN Optimizer 3

• 2nd_{Exact, expensive disk array}

• Heterogenous replication

• Drive down remote storage cost Capacity 80TB • 160TB • At least 50% lower capacity Cost $ • $$$$ • Proven to be 75% lower cost

Redefining Oracle Database Management

Actifio

™

PAS Specification

Redefining

Oracle Database

Management

A Single Solution for Backup, Recovery,

Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity and

Rapid Application Development for Oracle.

Contents

Introduction

Traditional Oracle Data

Management Approach

Oracle databases form the core

of many companies business

information systems. Protecting

this data and making it accessible

whenever needed has traditionally

been a complex and expensive

IT operation.

Applying Actifio’s Virtual Data

Pipeline to Oracle Database

Management

Virtual Data Pipeline Technology

Network Configuration

Actifio’s incremental-forever

architecture eliminates large data

movements from the capture process.

This approach significantly reduces

the amount of time required to capture

changes made to the production

In-Band Configuration

Actifio Benefits Summary

Instant Backup for Big Data

Instant Access

Support Listing

About Actifio