Redefining Oracle Database Management

Transcription

1 Redefining Oracle Database Management A Single solution for Backup, Recovery, Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity and Rapid Application Development White Paper February, 2012

2 Table of Contents List of Figures... 2 List of Tables... 2 Summary... 3 Background... 4 Virtualizing Oracle Database Management... 6 Oracle Database Management with Virtual Data Pipeline... 7 Summary of Actifio Backup of Oracle Databases... 7 Backup operations... 9 Restore operations... 9 Advanced Copy Management Operations... 9 Configuring Actifio PAS for Oracle Database Management Network Configuration In- Band Configuration Actifio PAS for Efficient Management of Oracle Databases Instant Backup Instant Access About Actifio List of Figures Figure 1: Legacy Data Management for Oracle Database... 4 Figure 3: Virtual Data Pipeline Architecture... 6 Figure 4: Architecture of Actifio Virtual Data Pipeline... 8 Figure 5: Actifio PAS for Oracle Database Management in network configuration Figure 6: Actifio PAS in in- band configuration for Oracle Database Management List of Tables Table 1: Costs and Storage Footprint of Legacy Approach... 5 Table 2: Sequence of operations for Oracle Backup... 7 Table 3: Cost and Storage Footprint for Oracle Database management with Actifio PAS Table 4: Cost and Storage Footprint for in- band configuration Table 5: Actifio PAS - The BIG Picture

3 Summary Actifio pioneered the industry s first storage system optimized for managing copies of production data, eliminating redundant silos of IT infrastructure and data management applications. While data storage technology is undergoing some fundamental shifts, production data storage moving from disk to SSD and copy data storage moving from tape to disk, very little has changed over the last two decades in the way data is managed. The legacy Oracle database management approach has been to deploy complex, expensive infrastructure silos- - built with point tools for each of protection, disaster recovery, business continuity, test & development, analytics, compliance or other applications- - each making and managing redundant copies of data. Actifio Protection and Availability Storage (PAS) introduces virtualization technology into Oracle database management resulting in elimination of the redundant silos of infrastructure and applications, while radically simplifying the operational process and reducing the cost by up to 10X. Actifio was created in order to modernize the entire data management process and not just a part of it. By introducing virtualization into data management, Actifio PAS delivers an Oracle- centric, policy- driven solution that decouples the management of data from storage, network and server infrastructure. The result is a single, radically simple solution that can reduce costs by up to 90% and efficiently manage all copies of production data for backup, disaster recovery, test, development or any other application that requires a copy of the database. 3

4 Background Databases form the core of business information and protecting this data and making it accessible where needed has traditionally been a complex and expensive IT operation. The figure below shows the typical infrastructure deployed to backup, provide disaster recovery and create test and development copies of Oracle Databases. Figure 1: Legacy Data Management for Oracle Database The traditional approach to provide this complex solution is full of inefficiencies. To illustrate, 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 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. 4

5 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 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 The table below summarizes the various software tools required and the storage footprint associated with each of these tools. Production*App Backup Disaster*Recovery Test*&*Development Business*Continuity Product Disk%Storage%System,% WAN%Optimizer%1 Backup%S/W,% DeDuplication%Device%1,% WAN%optimizer%1 Deduplication%Device%2,% WAN%Optimizer%2 Snapshot%License Disk%Storage%2,%WAN% Optimizer%2 Total*Copy Capacity 20TB 60TB 60TB 10TB 30TB 160TB Cost $ $ $ $ $ $$$$$ Table 1: Costs and Storage Footprint of Legacy Approach 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. The figure below shows the logical view of the multiple tools and data stores used in a traditional configuration. Figure 2: Logical view of traditional Oracle Database Management 5

6 Virtualizing Oracle Database Management Actifio created Virtual Data Pipeline technology to virtualize the management of copies of production data, eliminating redundancies and re- purposing the unique data for multiple data management applications. VmWare VmWare 1 Instant Restores in time Virtual Copies 4 Exchange/ Oracle App CBT Copy 2 VDP Storage Virtualization 3 DR Storage Virtualization VDP Big Data Unstructured App App App App Data Time Time Time Local Remote 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 Async to drive down network usage 4. Restore: App-aware instant mount to any host Maintains temporal and causal relationship between the objects Figure 3: Virtual Data Pipeline Architecture The Virtual Data Pipeline is a distributed object file system, virtualizing the core primitives of data management: copy, store, move and restore. This technology allows the instant creation of virtual copies of point- in- time data from the collection of unique blocks of data. A single solution can now be deployed to replace one or more of backup software, disaster recovery, business continuity or test and development tools and be used as a platform for search, compliance and analytics tools. The resulting simplicity of operations and reduction in infrastructure drives down the costs by up to 90% compared to the legacy methods. By introducing virtualization into data management, Actifio delivers an application- centric, - driven solution that decouples the management of data from storage, network and server infrastructure. At the core of Actifio PAS is Virtual Data Pipeline technology, which 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 PAS without any data movement. 6

7 Oracle Database Management with Virtual Data Pipeline Actifio s PAS delivers the industry s most efficient technology for Oracle Database management, radically simplifying the IT infrastructure and operations while driving down the capital and operational expense. Summary of Actifio Backup of Oracle Databases 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 datafile, 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 SCN at which the incremental backup was taken. RMAN can use the resulting updated datafile in media recovery just as it would use a full image copy taken at that system change number (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. The table below summarizes Actifo PAS Oracle database management, based on Oracle s RMAN Incrementally Updated Backups. Here, T0 is the first time and Tn is the nth time, the backup is performed. User s can configure the to have as many backup copies as needed per day. 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. 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. may also cause these blocks to move into DeDup Pool. Table 2: Sequence of operations for Oracle Backup 7

8 The net result is that Actifio PAS 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. Restoring a database is now instant, with the process 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 PAS 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 PAS delivers unprecedented flexibility in managing databases. User s can have any number of backups per day, providing unprecedented flexibility of the RPO and instant restore, reducing RTO for use by any application: data protection, disaster recovery, business continuity or test and development. Figure below shows the logical view of Actifio s Virtual Data Pipeline technology. Figure 4: Architecture of Actifio Virtual Data Pipeline 8

9 Backup operations Actifio PAS 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 PAS 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 PAS uses RMAN to create an image backup of the selected portions of the production database. The underlying RMAN operation used is a BACKUP INCREMENTAL LEVEL 0 AS COPY WITH TAG. This approach creates a consistent, point- in- time image of the database on the PAS copy storage. This image is managed by Actifio PAS through its virtualization primitives so that it is protected and replicated to remote PAS 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 BACKUP INCREMENTAL LEVEL 1 FOR RECOVER OF COPY WITH TAG 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, Actifio PAS performs a RECOVER COPY OF DATABASE WITH TAG operation on the image to put it into a consistent, ready- for- restore state. Although just the incremental changes are copied, they are applied to the previous image backup resulting in another virtual full image copy, which can have an independent life cycle, from the earlier image. Older images can be retained and expired to meet the Service Levels with no impact on subsequent backups. Restore operations Actifio PAS 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. Advanced Copy Management Operations Any of the backup images managed by Actifio PAS can be presented to the original production server or to any other host in the environment, physical or virtual through a GUI or a command line interface. Once presented to a host, this consistent, point- in- time image can be brought up as a new database instance. The image can be used as is or recovered to any point in time through the application of archive logs. The mounted image can be used as a complete read/write instance of the database for operations such as test and development, reporting and analytics. It can be migrated to production quality storage, if desired without down time. Although the mounted image can be modified, this does not affect the backup image that was the source of the mounted copy; the original backup image is preserved in its pristine form for restores, replication and additional mounted copies. 9

10 Actifio PAS reuses the snapshot copy of data for test and development and pipelines it for backup and Disaster Recovery. The diagram below details the Virtual Data Pipeline architecture as applied to Oracle Database management: Configuring Actifio PAS for Oracle Database Management There are two different configurations for using Actifio PAS in an Oracle Database environment. Network Configuration In this configuration, Actifio PAS is connected to the IP network, with RMAN directly writing to copy data store presented by Actifio PAS to the database server. Figure below shows the Network configuration. Figure 5: Actifio PAS for Oracle Database Management in network configuration Here, Actifio PAS 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. The storage and application footprint for the Actifio PAS solution is shown in the table below. Production*App Backup Disaster*Recovery Test*&*Development Business*Continuity Disk%Storage%System,% Disk%Storage%2,%WAN% Product WAN%Optimizer%1 Actifio%PAS%1 Actifio%PAS%2 Optimizer%2 Total*Copy Capacity 20TB 30TB 30TB 0TB 20TB 80TB Cost $ $ $ $ $$$ Table 3: Cost and Storage Footprint for Oracle Database management with Actifio PAS 10

11 In this configuration, Actifio PAS 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 PAS 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 about 30%, improving application performance. In- Band Configuration In the in- band configuration, Actifio PAS is configured in the SAN, monitoring the traffic between the database application and the SAN disk storage system. In addition to Backup, Disaster Recovery and Test and Development applications, Actifio PAS can also provide business continuity by providing real- time replication of the production database storage. Users can use heterogeneous disk storage systems on the two sides. Choosing the storage systems can be based on performance, capacity and cost, rather than vendor lock- in. This unique capability of Actifio PAS centralizes all copies of data and virtualizes how the data is reused for multiple business applications. Using Actifio PAS in the in- band configuration is the industry s most efficient and radically simple way of managing Oracle Databases. The figure below illustrates the architecture of in- band PAS deployment. Figure 6: Actifio PAS in in- band configuration for Oracle Database Management 11

12 The storage and application footprint for the in- band Actifio PAS solution is shown in the table below. Production*App Backup Disaster*Recovery Test*&*Development Business*Continuity Product Disk%Storage%System Actifio%PAS%1 Actifio%PAS%2 Total*Copy Capacity 20TB 30TB 50TB 0TB 0TB 80TB Cost $ $ $ 0 0 $$ Table 4: Cost and Storage Footprint for in- band configuration With the in- band architecture, Actifio PAS 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 PAS for Efficient Management of Oracle Databases Actifio PAS is purpose- built to optimize the management of copies of data. Actifio s Virtual Data Pipeline technology not only significantly reduces the amount of infrastructure required for all aspects of database management by up to 90% but also radically simplifies the management of and improves service levels for, backup, disaster recovery and test and development. The table below summarizes the big picture of Actifio PAS operations and benefits versus the traditional Oracle database management tools. Table 5: Actifio PAS - The BIG Picture 12

13 Instant Backup 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 PAS can leverage 8 Gbs Fibre 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 PAS can drastically reduce RPOs for even the largest database environments. Instant Access Actifio PAS also transforms the way customers recover data and use test and development environments. Actifio PAS stores the full database image with every data capture. Virtual copies of these application consistent images can be accessed instantly on any server in the environment, physical or virtual. For example, customers can access a virtual copy of a 1 TB database in seconds without using any new storage capacity. This capability not only provides instant recovery for production environments but also can be leveraged to create instant virtual copies of production data sets for test and development as well. About Actifio Actifio pioneered the industry s first storage system optimized for managing copies of production data, eliminating redundant silos of IT infrastructure and data management applications. Actifio Protection and Availability Storage (PAS) platform is based on patented Virtual Data Pipeline TM (VDP) technology, delivering dramatically enhanced business availability by eliminating backup and restore windows and the creation of virtual point- in- time copies of data on- demand, for use by any business application. Integrating data deduplication, network and processor utilization optimization, Actifio provides the most efficient way to manage data growth while solving your biggest IT challenges around information protection and availability. For additional information, visit Actifio at contact Actifio at info@actifio.com or