White Paper

ORACLE RMAN BACKUP FROM EMC XTREMIO to EMC Data Domain using EMC Data Domain Boost  Reduced backup windows: Minimize the production workload

impact of RMAN full backup  Extreme storage savings: Realize RMAN backup space savings using EMC Data Domain deduplication  Instant recovery: Restore and recover an Oracle database instantly using XtremIO snapshots

EMC Solutions Abstract This solution combines EMC XtremIO™ with EMC Data Domain® for use with Oracle 12c RAC. The primary database files are stored on XtremIO and an RMAN full backup is performed using DD Boost to a Data Domain target. This solution also validates restoring and recovering an Oracle database from an XtremIO snapshot. June 2015

Copyright © 2015 EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. The information in this publication is provided as is. EMC Corporation makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com. All trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. Part Number H14026

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Table of contents Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 5 Business case .................................................................................................................................. 5 Solution benefits ............................................................................................................................. 5 Key results/ recommendations ........................................................................................................ 6 Introduction.......................................................................................................................................... 7 Purpose ........................................................................................................................................... 7 Scope .............................................................................................................................................. 7 Audience ......................................................................................................................................... 7 Technology overview ............................................................................................................................ 8 EMC XtremIO all flash array .............................................................................................................. 8 XtremIO Snapshots ..................................................................................................................... 8 EMC Data Domain Deduplication Systems........................................................................................ 9 DD Boost for RMAN ........................................................................................................................ 10 Data Domain System Manager ....................................................................................................... 10 Advantages of Data Domain RMAN backup ................................................................................ 11 Oracle 12c Enterprise Edition ......................................................................................................... 11 Solution architecture .......................................................................................................................... 12 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 12 Architecture overview ..................................................................................................................... 12 Hardware resources ....................................................................................................................... 13 Software resources ........................................................................................................................ 13 Deploy Oracle on XtremIO .................................................................................................................. 14 Storage configuration..................................................................................................................... 14 XtremIO storage configuration........................................................................................................ 14 Oracle database ................................................................................................................................. 15 Overview ........................................................................................................................................ 15 Installing and configuring DD Boost for Oracle ................................................................................... 16 Overview ........................................................................................................................................ 16 Configuring Data Domain for DD Boost ........................................................................................... 16 Deploying DD Boost for Oracle ....................................................................................................... 16 Configuring Data Domain for DD Boost ...................................................................................... 16 Configure DD Boost RMAN Plugin .............................................................................................. 18 Use Case 1 .......................................................................................................................................... 20 Test objectives ............................................................................................................................... 20 Oracle RMAN Backup from EMC XtremIO to EMC Data Domain with EMC Data Domain Boost White Paper

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Test procedure ............................................................................................................................... 20 Test results .................................................................................................................................... 21 Use Case 2 .......................................................................................................................................... 26 Test objectives ............................................................................................................................... 26 Test procedure ............................................................................................................................... 26 Test results .................................................................................................................................... 27 Use Case 3 .......................................................................................................................................... 31 Test objectives ............................................................................................................................... 31 Test procedure ............................................................................................................................... 31 Test results .................................................................................................................................... 31 Use Case 4 .......................................................................................................................................... 32 Test objectives ............................................................................................................................... 32 Test procedure ............................................................................................................................... 32 Test results .................................................................................................................................... 33 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 34 Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 34 Findings ......................................................................................................................................... 34 References.......................................................................................................................................... 35 EMC documentation ....................................................................................................................... 35 Oracle documentation.................................................................................................................... 35

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Executive summary Business case

In today’s Oracle data centers, as the size of the average database increases, it becomes more difficult to fit full Oracle backups within the available off-hours backup window. The result is that either a full backup will intrude into the working day of Oracle production end-users (with a significant performance impact), or complex, difficult, and risky incremental backup schemes must be adopted. Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) incremental backup is never a good choice over a full backup because it creates a more complex and time-consuming path to restoration and recovery. A full backup provides the fastest, simplest, and safest path to restoring the database after a failure. For this reason, RMAN full backup is highly preferred, assuming it can be completed within the backup window. The key is to reduce the time that is required to perform an RMAN full backup. This assertion is reinforced by a recent survey that was conducted by the Independent Oracle User Group (IOUG), a focused community of over 30,000 Oracle customers, mostly DBAs. In this survey, 71 percent of the respondents said that too much time and budget is spent maintaining their existing Oracle database environments, which impacts their competitiveness and prevents funding of new projects.

Solution benefits

This white paper describes the benefits of performing an RMAN full online backup of a 20TB Oracle RAC database that is stored on an EMC XtremIO array. The database is backed up to a Data Domain target using the Data Domain Boost (DD Boost) interface. EMC Data Domain deduplication storage systems have brought autonomy and control to Oracle database administrators by supporting RMAN. Enabling the DD Boost interface provides a faster, more efficient Oracle backup and recovery solution. The combination of RMAN and DD Boost provides the following business benefits: 

DBA controls the backup process. The Oracle database administrator controls the entire backup and recovery process using Oracle RMAN. DD Boost for Oracle RMAN allows the database administrator to back up the database using best practices. The database is backed up to EMC Data Domain, with all of the deduplication advantages that method provides.



RMAN full backup minimally impacts performance of production workload. We ran a production workload and a multiple RMAN full backup test at the same time, while throttling DD Boost to minimize the impact of the backup job on the production workload. The impact on the production workload was minimal (less than 4 percent on average), and the duration of the backup was still well within acceptable limits.



XtremIO snapshots provide performance-neutral backup.

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Enterprise flash is rapidly displacing mechanical disks as the storage solution of choice for performance critical Oracle databases. The XtremIO array is the allflash array of choice for storing Oracle databases. Therefore, many customers have Oracle datafiles that are stored on an XtremIO array. The benefits of an XtremIO deployment were proven when we ran a complete restore and recovery from the full backup. An XtremIO snapshot was used to restore the Oracle database instantly. Key results/ recommendations

The non-throttled use case (Use Case 1) demonstrated: 

Average Data Domain ingest rate of RMAN full backup was 22.25 TB/hr



Deduplication of 7.1X after just one week of full backups



Backup duration average of 61 minutes for a 20 – 23TB database



Maximum peak value recorded was 36.09 TB/hr

In the throttled use case (Use Case 2), the average ingest rate fell to approximately 7.89 TB/hr. Also, the backup duration increased to just three hours. However, production performance impact was less than four percent on average with DD Boost throttled in this manner. That means this database could theoretically be backed up during business hours with minimal performance impact, provided that DD Boost is correctly throttled. The use of XtremIO snapshots as a simple form of backup is also very attractive. XtremIO snapshots have no performance impact, no capacity overhead, and can be instantly brought online as a normal XtremIO volume. This means that recovery from a simple human error (such as accidentally truncating a table) can occur very efficiently on an XtremIO array using snapshots.

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Introduction Purpose

The purpose of this white paper is to showcase the combination of EMC XtremIO for Oracle 12c RAC production database storage with EMC Data Domain for Oracle RMAN backup using the DD Boost interface. XtremIO has quickly become the all-flash array of choice for storing high performance Oracle databases. Oracle RMAN is very commonly used by production Oracle DBAs to backup Oracle database files to an EMC Data Domain target, and this typically occurs over the DD Boost interface. These two technologies combine well to bring maximum value to the customer.

Scope

Audience

This white paper describes the solution architecture and the processes we used to validate the following use cases: 

(Use Case 1) Validate the success of the RMAN DD Boost backup between the XtremIO array and Data Domain without a workload



(Use Case 2) Validate the success of the throttled RMAN DD Boost backup activity from the XtremIO array to Data Domain when a workload is running in parallel, demonstrating minimal performance impact



(Use Case 3). Restore the Oracle database from Data Domain using the RMAN DD Boost uncompressed backup from the previous use cases.



(Use Case 4) Restore the Oracle Database from an XtremIO snapshot

The primary audience of this white paper is database and system administrators, storage administrators, and system architects who are responsible for implementing, maintaining, and protecting Oracle databases and the storage systems that are used to store Oracle databases. Readers of this white paper should have some familiarity with Oracle database backup and recovery concepts, as well as EMC software.

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Technology overview EMC XtremIO all flash array

The XtremIO storage array is an all-flash system, which is based on a scale-out architecture. The system uses building blocks, called X-Bricks, which can be clustered together. The system operation is controlled with a stand-alone dedicated Linux-based server, called the XtremIO Management Server (XMS). Each XtremIO cluster requires its own XMS host, which can be either a physical or a virtual server. The array continues operating if it is disconnected from the XMS, but cannot be configured or monitored. XtremIO's array architecture is specifically designed to deliver the full performance potential of flash, while linearly scaling all resources such as CPU, RAM, SSDs, and host ports in a balanced manner. This allows the array to achieve required levels of performance, while maintaining consistency of performance that is critical to predictable application behavior. The XtremIO storage array provides a very high level of performance that is consistent over time, system conditions, and access patterns. It is designed for high granularity true random I/O. The cluster's performance level is not affected by its capacity utilization level, number of volumes, or aging effects. Performance is not based on a shared cache architecture and is not affected by the dataset size or data access pattern. Due to its content-aware storage architecture, XtremIO provides: 

Even distribution of data blocks, inherently leading to maximum performance and minimal flash wear



Even distribution of metadata



No data or metadata hotspots



Easy setup and no tuning



Advanced storage functionality, including Inline Data Deduplication and Compression, thin provisioning, advanced data protection (XDP), and snapshots.

XtremIO Snapshots XtremIO Snapshots are instantaneous copy images of volume data with the state of the data captured exactly as it appeared at the specific point in time that the snapshot was created. The volume data state and the specific volume data can be accessed when required, even when the source volume has changed. Creating snapshots, which can be done at any time, does not affect system performance, and a snapshot can be taken either directly from a source volume or from other snapshots within a source volume’s group (Volume Snapshot Group). The original copy of the data remains available without interruption, while the snapshot can be used to perform other functions on the data. Changes made to the snapshot’s source do not change or impact on the snapshot data.

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XtremIO snapshots are read/write. Users can choose to mount the snapshot as readonly to maintain its immutability. XtremIO's snapshot technology is implemented by leveraging the content-aware capabilities of the system (Inline Data Reduction), optimized for SSD media, with a unique metadata tree structure that directs I/O to the right timestamp of the data. This allows efficient snapshotting that can sustain high performance, while maximizing the media endurance, both in terms of the ability to create multiple snapshots and the amount of I/O that a snapshot can support. When creating a snapshot, the system generates a pointer to the ancestor metadata (of the actual data in the system). Therefore, creating a snapshot is a very quick operation that does not have any impact on the system and does not consume any capacity. Snapshot capacity consumption occurs only if a change requires writing a new unique block. XtremIO snapshots are space-efficient both in terms of additional metadata consumed and physical capacity. Snapshots are implemented using redirect-on-write methodology, where new writes to the source volume (or snapshot) are redirected to new locations, and only metadata is updated to point to the new data location. This method guarantees no performance degradation while snapshots are created. Snapshots can be accessed like any other volume in the cluster in read/write access mode, and enable a wide range of uses, including: 

Recovery from logical corruption



Backups



Development and testing



Clones



Offline processing

For more information, refer to the EMC XtremIO Storage Array User Guide. EMC Data Domain Deduplication Systems

EMC Data Domain deduplication systems are disk-based inline deduplication appliances and gateways that provide data protection and disaster recovery (DR) in the enterprise environment. All systems run the EMC Data Domain Operating System (DD OS), which provides both a command-line interface (CLI) for performing all system operations, and the EMC Data Domain System Manager (DD System Manager) graphical user interface (GUI) for configuration, management, and monitoring. Data Domain deduplication storage systems offer a cost-effective alternative to tape that allows users to enjoy the retention and recovery benefits of inline deduplication, as well as network-efficient replication over the wide area network (WAN) DR. Data Domain systems reduce the amount of disk storage that is needed to retain and protect data by 10 to 30 times. Data on disk is available online and onsite for longer retention periods, and restores become fast and reliable. Storing only unique data on disk also means that data can be cost-effectively replicated over existing networks to remote sites for DR. With the industry’s fastest deduplication storage controller, Data Domain systems allow more backups to complete faster while putting less pressure

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on limited backup windows. All Data Domain systems are built as the data store of last resort because they are enabled by: 

The EMC Data Domain Data Invulnerability Architecture



End-to-end data verification



Continuous fault detection and self-healing



Other resiliency features transparent to the application

DD Boost extends the Data Domain Data Invulnerability Architecture by generating checksums on the Oracle server before RMAN sends data to the Data Domain system. The Data Domain system receiving the data computes new checksums on the incoming data and compares them to the computed values from the backup application, ensuring inline verification of data. EMC further extends these benefits through DD Boost. DD Boost enables advanced integration between Data Domain systems and RMAN for faster, more efficient backup and recovery. DD Boost for RMAN DD Boost for RMAN enables database servers to communicate with Data Domain systems in an optimized way, without the need to use a backup application. Use of DD Boost for RMAN improves performance while reducing data transferred over the LAN. In the context of Oracle RMAN, the software has two components: 

An RMAN plug-in that you install on each database server. This plug-in includes the DD Boost libraries for communicating with the DD Boost server running on the Data Domain system.



The DD Boost server that runs on Data Domain systems

RMAN sets policies that control when backups and replications occur. Administrators manage backup, replication, and restore from a single console and can use all the features of DD Boost, including WAN-efficient replicator software. RMAN manages all files (collections of data) in the catalog, even those created by the Data Domain system. The Data Domain system exposes pre-made disk volumes called storage units to a DD Boost-enabled database server. Multiple database servers, each with the Data Domain RMAN plugin, can use the same storage unit on a Data Domain system as a storage server. Each database server can run a different operating system, if it is supported by Data Domain. Data Domain System Manager

DD System Manager is a browser-based GUI, available through Ethernet connections, for managing up to 20 systems (depending on the model) at any location. DD System Manager provides a single, consolidated management interface that allows for configuration and monitoring of many system features and system settings. DD System Manager provides real-time graphs and tables to monitor the status of system hardware components and configured features. Also, a command set that performs all system functions is available to users at the CLI. Commands configure system settings and provide displays of system hardware status, feature configuration, and operation. The CLI is available through a serial console or through an Ethernet connection using secure shell (SSH) or Telnet. Oracle RMAN Backup from EMC XtremIO to EMC Data Domain using EMC Data Domain Boost White Paper

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Advantages of Data Domain RMAN backup Data Domain provides significant space savings for Oracle RMAN full backup. Effectively, the space that is required for full backup is very similar to an RMAN incremental backup. However, the simplicity, reliability, and speed of restore of a full backup are all preserved using RMAN over DD Boost. Also, the deduplication that is provided by DD Boost dramatically reduces the duration of the RMAN full backup job. Finally, DD Boost can be throttled. Although this increases the duration of the backup job (of course), it also allows the backup to run simultaneously with the production workload and without significant impact on that workload. The duration of the backup job is still within acceptable limits. Oracle 12c Enterprise Edition

Oracle Database 12c introduces the Oracle multitenant architecture, which simplifies the process of consolidating databases onto the cloud. Oracle Database 12c delivers all the benefits of managing many databases as one, yet it retains the data isolation and resource prioritization of a separate database. Oracle RAC 12c extends Oracle Database 12c so that you can store, update, and efficiently retrieve data using multiple database instances on different servers simultaneously. Oracle RAC 12c provides the software that manages multiple servers and instances as a single group.

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Solution architecture Introduction

This section illustrates the architectural layout of the solution. It also provides details of the hardware and software resources that we used in the solution.

Architecture overview

Figure 1 shows the layout of the solution. The architecture is composed of the following layers: 

Compute layer—Made up of five physical servers.



Network layer—Made up of two IP switches and two director-class SAN switches. The SAN switches are designed for deployment in storage networks supporting data centers and enterprise clouds.



Storage layer—Made up of a four X-Brick XtremIO array with 60.9 TB of usable physical capacity. XtremIO Storage Management Application, a powerful and visually intuitive XtremIO system dashboard, was used to view performance, capacity, and system health of the array.

Figure 1.

Solution architecture layout

Four physical servers with Oracle Enterprise Linux OS are used to service the production database workload as well running RMAN backups, another physical server again with Oracle Enterprise Linux OS is used to run the production Silly Little Oracle Benchmark (SLOB) workload. The production database consists of a four-node Oracle RAC cluster that is deployed on an XtremIO array. A Data Domain DD7200 deduplication appliance acts as a target for the DD Boost RMAN backups. The solution uses 10 Gb Ethernet for database interconnect and between the database server and the Data Domain appliance. One Gb Ethernet is used for all other IP traffic.

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Hardware resources

Table 1 lists the hardware resources that are used in the solution. Table 1.

Hardware resources

Hardware

Quantity

Configuration

Storage array

1

XtremIO array (four X-Bricks)

Servers

5

16 cores, 2.9 GHz processors, 512 GB RAM, including: 1 x 1 Gb Ethernet (GbE) network interface card (NIC) 2 x 10 GbE NIC

LAN switches

4

1 GbE and 10 GbE

SAN switches

2

FC

EMC DD7200

1

256 GB memory 3 x internal SATA drives One 1000/100/10 copper Ethernet 2 x dual-port 10 GbE optical network interface cards 4 x ES30 disk shelves with 15 x 3 TB SAS disks

Software resources Table 2 lists the software resources that are used in this solution. Table 2.

Software resources

Software

Version

Notes

Oracle Enterprise Linux

6.5 (with default kernel)

Operating system for all database servers

Oracle Database 12c Release 1

Enterprise Edition 12.1.0.2

Database

Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 1

Enterprise Edition 12.1.0.2

Clusterware with ASM for volume management

Oracle ASMLib

2.0

Support library for ASM

SLOB

2.2

OLTP benchmark tool

XIOS

3.0

XtremIO operating system

XtremIO Storage Management Application

3.0.0 build 44

XtremIO Management

Fabric OS

5.2(8)

SAN

DD OS

5.5.1.4-464376

Data Domain operating system

DD Boost RMAN plug-in

1.2.1.0-436349

Installed on all database servers

PowerPath

5.7 SP 5 (build 2)

Multipathing software

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Deploy Oracle on XtremIO Storage configuration

For this solution, XtremIO was deployed in a four X-Brick configuration with built-in redundant 40 Gb/s QDR InfiniBand switches providing back-end connectivity between the storage controllers. This ensures a highly available, ultra-low latency RDMA network. With XtremIO Data Protection, XtremIO requires far less reserved capacity for data protection, metadata storage, snapshots, spare drives, and performance, leaving much more space for user data. This lowers the cost per usable GB. In this 4-X-Brick configuration, the XtremIO cluster was configured with one hundred 800 GB SSDs, which provides 60.9 TB usable physical space.

XtremIO storage configuration

To address the problem of a database or application that does not recognize the new 4 KB physical sector size used with SSDs, we created volumes from the XtremIO array with a logical block size of 512 bytes. Figure 2 shows an example of creating a volume.

Figure 2.

Creating volumes in the XtremIO array

To make the volumes visible to the hosts, we mapped the volumes to the initiator groups of the servers. Figure 3 shows an example of mapping the volumes to the initiator groups:

Figure 3.

Mapping volumes to the initiator groups of the servers

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Oracle database Overview

For this solution, using SLOB we created one 20 TB four-node Oracle 12c RAC database with unique data that is used as the production database. The production database was configured with archive logging enabled to simulate real-world cases. Refer to Oracle Best Practices with XtremIO for more information about configuring Oracle databases on XtremIO.

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Installing and configuring DD Boost for Oracle Overview

Install the Data Domain hardware, including a system console, as described in the Data Domain Installation and Setup Guide, which ships with the Data Domain system. The Installation and Setup Guide provides instructions for installing the Data Domain system, connecting it to an administrative console, and powering it on.

Configuring Data Domain for DD Boost

When the installation is completed, the Data Domain Configuration Wizard starts automatically. The Configuration Wizard performs an initial configuration of the Data Domain system, configuring only what is needed for the most basic system setup, including licenses, network, file system, CIFS, and NFS. For more information about using the Configuration Wizard and changing or updating the configuration, see the Data Domain Operating System (DD OS) Initial Configuration Guide.

Deploying DD Boost for Oracle

For DD Boost backups, the Data Domain system must be configured to enable the Oracle nodes access to the Data Domain storage unit that is used as the target for RMAN to store the backups. Figure 4 shows how we configured Data Domain using four 10 GbE interfaces (eth3a,eth3b,eth4a and eth4b).

Figure 4.

Data Domain network interfaces

Configuring Data Domain for DD Boost To enable DD Boost on a Data Domain System, perform the following steps: 1.

Check that you have a DD Boost license by typing the following command on the Data Domain: sysadmin@dd_7200_1# license show Feature licenses: ## License Key Feature -----------------------------1 XXXX-YYYYY-XXXX-YYYY DDBOOST ------------------------------

If required, use the following command to add the license to the Data Domain: sysadmin@dd_7200_1# license add

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2.

Enable DD Boost access for the Oracle Servers by typing the following command on the Data Domain: sysadmin@dd_7200_1# ddboost access add clients sse-mad-ora14.gso.lab.com sse-mad-ora14.gso.lab.com : Added

This example enables DD Boost access for sse-mad-ora14. gso.emc.com 3.

Repeat step 2 for all servers that require access.

4.

Ensure that all servers were added correctly, by typing the following command on the Data Domain: sysadmin@dd_7200_1# ddboost access show DD Boost access allowed from the following clients: sse-mad-ora10.gso.lab.com sse-mad-ora11.gso.lab.com sse-mad-ora14.gso.lab.com sse-mad-ora15.gso.lab.com

5.

Create the DD Boost username and password for the Data Domain system. sysadmin@DD_7200_1# user add ddboost-oracle password User "ddboost-oracle" added. sysadmin@DD_7200_1# ddboost user assign ddboost-oracle User-name set to ddboost-oracle. Previous user: sysadmin

6.

Enable DD Boost on Data Domain by typing the following command: sysadmin@dd_7200_1# ddboost enable DD Boost enabled.

Alternatively, as with all other DD Boost options, you can enable DD Boost using the DD System Manager with the Data Management > DD Boost > Settings tab. 7.

Create a storage group on Data Domain that will be used by RMAN. sysadmin@DD_7200_1# ddboost storage-unit create oracle_storage_unit Created storage-unit "oracle_storage_unit".

8.

Enable Distributed Segment Processing by typing the following command: sysadmin@dd_7200_1# ddboost option set distributed-segment-processing enabled DD Boost option "distributed-segment-processing" set to enabled.

The Data Domain system is now ready to receive DD Boost backups that are run by RMAN. For more information and other optional configuration steps refer to the EMC Data Domain Boost for Oracle Recovery Manager Administration Guide.

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Configure DD Boost RMAN Plugin To configure DD Boost for RMAN perform the following steps: 1.

Download the RMAN plugin for your operating system from the Support portal (https://support.emc.com).

2.

Install the RMAN Plugin by typing the following command on each Oracle node: For more detailed steps refer to the EMC Data Domain Boost for Oracle

Recovery Manager Administration Guide

[@SSE-MAD-ORA14]# ./install.sh lockbox directory /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/config created Installing the Data Domain plugin for RMAN ... Copying the lockbox libraries to /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/config/. Copying libddobk.so to /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/. Copying libDDBoost.so to /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/. Successfully installed the Data Domain plugin for RMAN

3.

The following command is an example of how the RMAN tape channel can be configured: RMAN> CONFIGURE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE 'SBT_TAPE' TRACE 1 PARMS 'BLKSIZE=1048576,SBT_LIBRARY=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/ dbhome_1/lib/libddobk.so,ENV=(STORAGE_UNIT=ddboostoracle,BACKUP_HOST=sse-dd-72003a.gso.lab.emc.com,ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_HOME)';

Note: Although the RMAN channel configuration can be set before the backup to give more flexibility, we set the required RMAN channel configuration in the backup script. Refer to use cases 1, 2, and 3 for examples.

4.

For RAC environment with a common Oracle home, create a shared lockbox file. The following command is an example of how to create a shared lockbox file: RUN { ALLOCATE CHANNEL C1 TYPE SBT_TAPE PARMS 'SBT_LIBRARY=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/lib ddobk.so';send 'hostnames SSE-MAD-ORA10 SSE-MAD-ORA11 SSEMAD-ORA14 SSE-MAD-ORA15';RELEASE CHANNEL C1; }

Note: For this solution a shared lockbox was not required as Oracle home was not shared.

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5.

The following command is an example of how we registered the Data Domain System with the DD Boost RMAN plugin on each Oracle node: RUN { ALLOCATE CHANNEL C1 TYPE SBT_TAPE PARMS 'SBT_LIBRARY=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/db_1/lib/libddob k.so'; send 'set username ddboost-oracle password servername sse-dd-7200-3a.gso.lab.emc.com'; RELEASE CHANNEL C1; }

The deployment of DD Boost for Oracle is now complete. RMAN backups and restores can now be performed via DD Boost to and from Data Domain. For details about the steps to configure the DD Boost RMAN plug-in, and other configuration options refer to the EMC Data Domain Boost for Oracle Recovery Manager Administration Guide.

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Use Case 1 Test objectives

Test procedure

This test case describes RMAN full database backups without a production workload. In this use case, we validate the success of the RMAN DD Boost backup between the XtremIO array and Data Domain by: 

Quantifying DD Boost full backups to Data Domain using increased data loads



Quantifying the RMAN DD Boost full backup performance with data files when there is no workload running in parallel

To simulate a real-world daily backup scenario, we ran the following test procedure: 1.

Determine the size of the database using the following SQL query: select sum(bytes)/1024/1024/1024/1024 as "DB size in TB" from dba_extents;

2.

Perform the initial full backup for the database to Data Domain with DD Boost using the following RMAN script: Note: In the following backup script, the commands to ALLOCATE/RELEASE CHANNEL are only shown for c1 and c64. For load balancing purposes 16 channels were allocated to each backup node bkdb1-4 and to each Data Domain interface 3a, 3b, 4a & 4b for a total of 64 channels.

RUN { CONFIGURE DEVICE TYPE sbt PARALLELISM 64; ALLOCATE CHANNEL c1 TYPE SBT_TAPE PARMS 'BLKSIZE=1048576, SBT_LIBRARY=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/libddobk.so, ENV=(STORAGE_UNIT=oracle_storage_unit,BACKUP_HOST=sse-dd-72003a.gso.lab.emc.com,ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/)' connect 'sys/oracle@bkdb1'; ALLOCATE CHANNEL c64 TYPE SBT_TAPE PARMS 'BLKSIZE=1048576, SBT_LIBRARY=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/libddobk.so, ENV=(STORAGE_UNIT=oracle_storage_unit,BACKUP_HOST=sse-dd-72004b.gso.lab.emc.com,ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/)' connect 'sys/oracle@bkdb4'; BACKUP (Datafile 7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,646,647,648,649,650 Channel c1) (Datafile 2,637,638,639,640,641,642,643,644,645,963,964,965,1,3,6 Channel c64); RELEASE CHANNEL c1; RELEASE CHANNEL c64; }

Note: We manually allocated Oracle database datafiles to RMAN channels to show the best sustained backup performance figures that can be reached using this solution.

3.

Record the following from Data Domain: a.

The space consumed by using the following command: sysadmin@DD_7200_1# filesys show compression

b.

The backup performance statistics by using the following command: Oracle RMAN Backup from EMC XtremIO to EMC Data Domain using EMC Data Domain Boost White Paper

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sysadmin@DD_7200_1# system show performance duration 2 hr interval 1 min

Run the SLOB script, which is configured to increase the database size by 2.5 percent.

5.

Repeat steps 1 to 4 six times to simulate a week of full backups in a production environment.

Figure 5 illustrates the source database size over seven days. To simulate the real-life data growth of a data warehouse, we applied an incremental data load of approximately 2.5 percent between backups.

Database size 2.5% daily increase over 7 days 23.5 22.54

23.0 22.5

DB size in TB

Test results

4.

22.0

21.11

21.5

22.06

20.63

21.0 20.5

21.58

23.02

20.16

20.0 19.5 19.0 18.5 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Backup Cycle (Days) Figure 5.

Database size — 2.5 percent daily increase over a simulated seven days

Figure 6 shows the backup duration in hours and minutes of an RMAN uncompressed backup with an average 2.5 percent daily increase in database size. The first backup takes more time to complete because it is the first time that the data is written to the Data Domain system. The value of running RMAN full backups to Data Domain is the reduction in backup duration for all subsequent full backups.

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Backup Duration 7.12 Hours:Minutes

6.00

6:02

4.48 3.36 2.24 1:03

1.12 0.00

Figure 6.

1:02

1:02

1:00

1:00

1:02

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Backup Cycle (days)

RMAN DD Boost—uncompressed full backup duration

Figure 7 illustrates the average Data Domain ingest rate in TB/hour with an uncompressed RMAN backup. As seen previously in the backup duration test, the throughput is slower on the first backup. Using RMAN uncompressed backups with Data Domain’s deduplication technology results in an ingest rate of 22.25 TB/hour on average for all subsequent full backups.

Average Ingest Rates 25 19.65

TB/hr

20

20.43

20.88

22.06

22.54

22.27

15 10 5

3.34

0

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Backup Cycle (days) Figure 7.

RMAN DD Boost—Ingest rates with uncompressed full backups

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Note: The ingest rate is calculated by converting the MB/s rate that is recorded from Data Domain and converting it to TB/hr

Figure 8 illustrates the Data Doman ingest rate throughout the backup on Day 6. For this solution, RMAN uncompressed backups with Data Domain’s deduplication technology resulted in peak ingest speeds in excess of 36 TB/hour for subsequent full backups.

Peak Ingest Rate 40.0

36.09 TB/hr

35.0

TB/hr

30.0 25.0 20.0 15.0 10.0 5.0 0.0 0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

Subsequent Backup - Day 6 (Minutes) Figure 8.

RMAN DD Boost—Peak Ingest rates

Due to the design of the Data Domain deduplication technology, there was an average of 25.9x storage saving for each nightly full backup. For example, on the sixth day, a full backup of 21,239 Gibibytes (GiB) used just 785 GiB physical space in Data Domain, resulting in a 29.8x storage reduction. Figure 9 illustrates the savings that can be achieved with full backups on a daily basis. Over time, the savings are even greater.

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1400

40.00

1200

35.00 29.8

GiB

1000

28.7

800

24.4

23.6

25.00

26.3

600

20.00

17.5

400

30.00

200

15.00

0

10.00 Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Storage savings vs Daily full

Daily storage savings

Day 7

Full Backup Cycle - Days Daily increase in data stored on DD (GiB) Figure 9.

Nightly dedupe rate (X)

RMAN DD Boost—Full Backup storage savings after seven days

Figure 10 illustrates the cumulative effect of storage savings over a seven-day full backup cycle. After seven days of running the backup, 156,698 GiB of data was backed up; however, only 22,071 GiB of storage space was needed on the Data Domain deduplication storage system, resulting in a 7.1x storage saving. This 86 percent storage saving represents a significant decrease in backup infrastructure requirements and facility costs. As a result, regular backups of large databases are more sustainable and much less costly than before.

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Cumulative Storage Savings 7.1

160,000

6.3

140,000

5.4

120,000

4.4

156,698

8.0 7.0 6.0

132,851

109,492

5.0

100,000

3.4

86,619

4.0

80,000

2.4

60,000 40,000 20,000

64,233

3.0

42,336

1.3

20,925

17,738

16,517

2.0 18,636

19,583

20,455

22,071

21,239

0

1.0

Cumulative Dedupe Rate

Cumulative Data Ingested / Stored (GiB)

180,000

0.0 Day 1

Day 2

Cumulative ingest data (GiB) Figure 10.

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Full Backup Cycle (days)

Cumulative data stored on DD (GiB)

Day 6

Day 7

Cumulative dedupe rate (X)

RMAN DD Boost—Cumulative storage savings over seven days

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Use Case 2 Test objectives

Test procedure

Validate the success of the RMAN DD Boost backup activity from the XtremIO array to Data Domain when a workload is running in parallel by: 

Quantifying the RMAN DD Boost full backups to Data Domain using increased data loads.



Quantifying the throttled RMAN DD Boost full backups and the impact on a workload running in parallel.

To simulate a real-world daily backup scenario with workload running we ran the following test procedure: 1.

Determine the size of the database using the following SQL query: select sum(bytes)/1024/1024/1024/1024 as "DB size in TB" from dba_extents;

2.

Run the SLOB script which is configured to insert 2.5 percent of new data and update 2.5 percent of the existing data. Once the SLOB script has been started, run the full backup for the database using the following RMAN script. Note: In this scenario we performed a full speed backup (64 RMAN channels) on Day 1. In the backup script shown below the commands to ALLOCATE/RELEASE CHANNEL c2-c63 are not shown. For load balancing purposes backup nodes bkdb14 and four Data Domain ports 3a,3b,4a and 4b were used. RUN { CONFIGURE DEVICE TYPE sbt PARALLELISM 64; ALLOCATE CHANNEL c1 TYPE SBT_TAPE PARMS 'BLKSIZE=1048576, SBT_LIBRARY=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/libddobk.so, ENV=(STORAGE_UNIT=oracle_storage_unit,BACKUP_HOST=sse-dd-72003a.gso.lab.emc.com,ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/)' connect 'sys/oracle@bkdb1'; ALLOCATE CHANNEL c64 TYPE SBT_TAPE PARMS 'BLKSIZE=1048576, SBT_LIBRARY=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/libddobk.so, ENV=(STORAGE_UNIT=oracle_storage_unit,BACKUP_HOST=sse-dd-72004b.gso.lab.emc.com,ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/)' connect 'sys/oracle@bkdb4'; BACKUP TAG 'DDBOOST' FILESPERSET 8 as backupset DATABASE FORMAT '%d_set%s_piece%p_%T_%U'; RELEASE CHANNEL c1; RELEASE CHANNEL c64; }

Note: For this use case for Day2 to Day7 backups, to reduce the impact on the workload, we allocated sixteen channels to one node. The following backup script was used, the commands to ALLOCATE/RELEASE CHANNEL c2-c15 are not shown. In this case just one backup node bkdb2 was used but the 16 RMAN channels were still load balanced across the four Data Domain ports 3a, 3b, 4a and 4b. RUN { CONFIGURE DEVICE TYPE sbt PARALLELISM 16; ALLOCATE CHANNEL c1 TYPE SBT_TAPE PARMS 'BLKSIZE=1048576, SBT_LIBRARY=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/libddobk.so, ENV=(STORAGE_UNIT=oracle_storage_unit,BACKUP_HOST=sse-dd-72003a.gso.lab.emc.com,ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/)' connect 'sys/oracle@bkdb2';

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ALLOCATE CHANNEL c16 TYPE SBT_TAPE PARMS 'BLKSIZE=1048576, SBT_LIBRARY=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/libddobk.so, ENV=(STORAGE_UNIT=oracle_storage_unit,BACKUP_HOST=sse-dd-72004b.gso.lab.emc.com,ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/)' connect 'sys/oracle@bkdb2'; BACKUP TAG 'DDBOOST' FILESPERSET 8 as backupset DATABASE FORMAT '%d_set%s_piece%p_%T_%U'; RELEASE CHANNEL c1; RELEASE CHANNEL c16;

3.

Record the following information from Data Domain: a.

Space consumed using the following command:

sysadmin@DD_7200_1# filesys show compression

b.

Backup performance statistics using the following command:

sysadmin@DD_7200_1# system show performance duration 2 hr interval 1 min

4.

Figure 11 illustrates the source database size over seven days. To simulate the reallife data growth of a data warehouse, we applied an incremental data load of approximately 2.5 percent between backups, and a further 2.5 percent of changes were made to existing data.

Database size 2.5% daily increase over 7 days 25.0

23.82

24.0 DB size in TB

Test results

To simulate a week of full backups in a production environment, repeat step 1 to 3, six times.

23.19

23.0

21.99

22.0 21.0

20.76

22.60

21.38

20.12

20.0 19.0 18.0 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Daily Backup

Figure 11.

DB size in TB — 2.5 percent daily changes over a simulated seven days

Note: Changes were also made to approximately 2.5 percent of existing data

Figure 12 illustrates how the impact of RMAN backup on the workload was recorded. The following key metrics were extracted from the AWR Report: Oracle RMAN Backup from EMC XtremIO to EMC Data Domain with EMC Data Domain Boost White Paper

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

Physical write IO requests was used for physical write IOPS, which are shown as Write IOPS in Table 4.



Physical read IO requests was used for physical read IOPS, which are shown as Read IOPS in Table 4.

Figure 12.

Key metrics from AWR report

Table 3 illustrates the impact of the backup on the workload during the simulated seven day period. The backup impacted the average performance of the workload by 3.84 percent. Table 3.

Impact of RMAN backup on workload

Performance metric

Performance data Baseline

Day 1

Day 2

Day3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Read IOPS

10,606

10,915

10,197.66

9,828

10,649

10,057.03

10,250

9,999

Write IOPS

3,607

3,676

3,486.08

3,361

3,605

3,417.80

3,465

3,396.48

Aggregate IOPS

14,213.69

14,591.18

13,683.74

13,188.83

14,254.41

13,474.83

13,715.46

13,395.68

Performance impact (%)

N/A

0.00%

3.87%

7.77%

0.00%

5.48%

3.63%

6.11%

Figure 13 illustrates the backup duration in hours and minutes for the RMAN uncompressed backups with a 2.5 percent increase of the database size and a further 2.5 percent of changes were made to existing data. The first backup takes more time to complete because it is the first time that the data is written to the Data Domain system. The value of performing full RMAN database backups to Data Domain is the reduction in backup duration for all subsequent backups. In this use case, the RMAN DD Boost subsequent backups are throttled to minimize the impact on the production workload. The subsequent backup duration is increased relative to the non-throttled case (see use case 1); but this results in very minimal impact (less than 4 percent on average) to the production workload.

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Backup duration and workload impact 100

6:33

90

Hours:Minutes

6:00

80 70

4:48

60

3:36

3:03

3:12

3:01

2:56

50

2:57

2:51

40

2:24 1:12 0:00

Figure 13.

30 20 0%

3.9%

7.8%

0%

5.5%

3.6%

10 6.1% 0

Percentage Impact to Workload

7:12

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Backup Cycle (days) RMAN DD Boost—backup duration and workload impact

Figure 14 illustrates the backup rate in TB/hour with an uncompressed RMAN full backup. As seen in the backup duration test, the throughput is slower on the first backup. In this use case, the RMAN DD Boost subsequent backups are throttled to minimize the impact on the production workload. The result is an average Data Domain ingest rate of 7.89 TB/hour for all subsequent full backups. The subsequent backup ingest rates are decreased but the result is very minimal impact (less than 4 percent on average) to the production workload.

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Average ingest rates 10

100

9 8

TB/hr

8.54

8.15 7.51

7.22

90 80

7.28

7

70

6

60

5

50

4

40

3.28

3

30

2 1

20 3.9% 0%

7.8%

5.5%

3.6%

0%

0

Percentage Impact to Workload

8.61

10 6.1% 0

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Backup cycle (days) Figure 14.

RMAN DD Boost—Average ingest rates and workload impact

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Use Case 3 Test objectives

Restore the Oracle database from Data Domain using the RMAN DD Boost uncompressed backup from the previous tests.

Test procedure

We used the following RMAN script to restore the database from Data Domain: Note: In the following restore script the commands to ALLOCATE/RELEASE CHANNEL are only shown for 4 of the 64 RMAN channels. For load balancing purposes 16 channels were assigned to each backup node bkdb1-4 and each Data Domain port 3a, 3b, 4a and 4b. RUN { CONFIGURE DEVICE TYPE sbt PARALLELISM 64; ALLOCATE CHANNEL c1 TYPE SBT_TAPE PARMS 'BLKSIZE=1048576, SBT_LIBRARY=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/libddobk.so, ENV=(STORAGE_UNIT=oracle_storage_unit,BACKUP_HOST= sse-dd-72003a.gso.lab.emc.com, ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/) 'connect 'sys/oracle@bkdb1'; ALLOCATE CHANNEL c17 TYPE SBT_TAPE PARMS 'BLKSIZE=1048576, SBT_LIBRARY=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/libddobk.so, ENV=(STORAGE_UNIT=oracle_storage_unit,BACKUP_HOST= sse-dd-7200 4a.gso.lab.emc.com, ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/) ' connect 'sys/oracle@bkdb2'; ALLOCATE CHANNEL c33 TYPE SBT_TAPE PARMS 'BLKSIZE=1048576, SBT_LIBRARY=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/libddobk.so, ENV=(STORAGE_UNIT=oracle_storage_unit,BACKUP_HOST=sse-dd-7200-3b.gso.lab.emc.com, ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/) ' connect 'sys/oracle@bkdb3'; ALLOCATE CHANNEL c49 TYPE SBT_TAPE PARMS 'BLKSIZE=1048576, SBT_LIBRARY=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/libddobk.so, ENV=(STORAGE_UNIT=oracle_storage_unit,BACKUP_HOST=sse-dd-7200-4b.gso.lab.emc.com, ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/) ' connect 'sys/oracle@bkdb4'; RESTORE DATABASE; RECOVER DATABASE; RELEASE CHANNEL c1; RELEASE CHANNEL c17; RELEASE CHANNEL c33 RELEASE CHANNEL c49;

} Note: We allocated 64 channels, 16 for each node.

Test results

We successfully restored a 24.55 TB database from RMAN backup that is stored on Data Domain in 4 hours and 39 minutes, giving an effective restore rate of 5.28 TB/hour.

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Use Case 4 Test objectives

Restore the Oracle Database from an XtremIO snapshot.

Test procedure

To restore the database from an XtremIO Snapshot, perform the following steps: 1.

Put the database into backup mode by typing the following command in SQL*PLUS. alter database begin backup;

2.

To create an XtremIO Snapshot of the volumes in the Oracle DATA disk group take the following steps: a.

Highlight the source volumes from the XtremIO Management Application console

b.

Right-click and use the Create Snapshots option to create a consistent snapshot for the Oracle data volumes.

Figure 15.

Creating Snapshots in XtremIO

Note: The volumes in FRA disk group were not selected because the archive log files in FRA must be applied during the database recovery process.

3.

Type the following command in SQL*PLUS to take the database out of backup mode. alter database end backup;

4.

Type the following command in SQL*PLUS to simulate the database failure. shutdown abort;

5.

Unmount the ASM DATA disk group from database servers using the following example: Oracle RMAN Backup from EMC XtremIO to EMC Data Domain using EMC Data Domain Boost White Paper

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srvctl stop diskgroup -d DATA

6.

Unmap the source volumes that are used in the ASM DATA disk group using the XtremIO management console.

7.

Map the snapshots that are created in step two to the database servers using the XtremIO management console.

8.

Perform ASM disk scan by typing the following command: oracleasm

9.

scandisks

Mount the ASM DATA disk group using the following example: srvctl start diskgroup -d DATA

10. Start up the database instance with mount option using the following example: startup database mount;

11. Recover the database with the following command in SQL*PLUS: recover database;

12. Open the database using the following example: alter database open;

Test results

This use case proves that an Oracle database can be instantly restored from an XtremIO snapshot.

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Conclusion Summary

Findings

The use cases illustrate how EMC technologies such as XtremIO, Data Domain and DD Boost enable operational agility and infrastructure efficiency in an Oracle production data center: 

Shrinking Backup Windows - The backup scenario showed that over a typical week with the database size of 20TB growing to 23 TB, the backup window required for day 2 to day 7 was about 1 hour a night. Thus giving operational agility to the crucial daily RMAN backup window in production environment with little impact on the production users and workloads.



Extreme Storage Savings - Deploying EMC’s Data Domain and DD Boost enables an Oracle DBA to control the Oracle backup via RMAN while creating extreme efficiency with storage savings. In the simulated typical backup week, approximately 157 TB of data was backed up but only 22 TB of storage was needed on the Data Domain appliance.



Instant Recovery – The restore scenario showed that an XtremIO snapshot enables restoration and recovery of an Oracle database with a few clicks.

The non-throttled use case (Use Case 1) shows a 22.25 TB/hr average ingest rate for subsequent RMAN full backups. The deduplication rate after just one week was 7.1X. Database backups of 20 – 23TB in size are completed in approximately 61 minutes. This was the use case in which no production workload was running, emulating an off-peak-hours backup job. The throttled use case (Use Case 2) showed that with an average ingest rate of 7.89 TB/hr, the backup duration rose to three hours. However, by throttling the RMAN DD Boost backup, the production workload (which ran simultaneously with the backup job in this use case) was only impacted by about 4 percent on average. Thus, we proved that this database could be backed up during working hours (provided the RMAN DD Boost backup is correctly throttled). In Use Case 3, a restore/recovery completed successfully from a full backup. Finally, in Use Case 4, XtremIO snapshots were validated as a form of Oracle backup (for quick recovery from simple human errors). Restoration of an Oracle database using an XtremIO snapshot occurred instantly.

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References EMC documentation

Oracle documentation

The following documents that are identified in this white paper are available from www.EMC.com or EMC Online Support. Access to Online Support depends on your login credentials. If you do not have access to a document, contact your EMC representative. 

EMC Data Domain Boost for Oracle Recovery Manager Administration Guide



EMC Data Domain Operating System Administration Guide



EMC Data Domain Boost for Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) A Technical Review



EMC XtremIO Storage Array User Guide



Oracle Best Practices with XtremIO



EMC XtremIO High- Performance Consolidation Solution for Oracle



Oracle 11g and 12c Database Consolidation with EMC XtremIO 3.0

For more information, see the following documents available from https://support.oracle.com, which requires a login: 

Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide 12c Release 1 (12.1) for Linux



Oracle Database Installation Guide 12c Release 1 (12.1) for Linux.

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