Optimizing Oracle DBA Efficiency

THE DBA TECHNICAL HANDBOOK

MAKING ORACLE DBAS MORE PRODUCTIVE WITH EMC VIRTUAL INFRASTRUCTURELeverage EMC Proven Solutions to deliver advantages in performance, management, and cost for your Oracle database environments.

REDEFINEYOUR ORACLE ENVIRONMENT

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Introduction ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................2

Redefining the Role of the DBA .........................................................................................................................................................................................................3

Optimize Oracle Performance ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................5

Scale Oracle Faster without Disruption ..............................................................................................................................................................................8

Accelerate Oracle Lifecycle Management ......................................................................................................................................................................9

Enhance Oracle Backup and Recovery ........................................................................................................................................................................... 11

Consistent Oracle Data Protection ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 12

Continuous Availability for Mission-Critical Oracle ................................................................................................................................. 13

Three Paths to the Cloud .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14

Improve DBA Productivity with EMC.................................................................................................................................................................................... 16

CONTENTS

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EMC® and Oracle® share a deep history of investment dating back to 1995, and the partnership currently supports

over 80,000 joint customers. EMC and Oracle continue that long history of collaboration today through strong joint

engineering, solutions development, and global support.

This cumulative investment over nearly two decades has led to EMC being the #1 storage platform deployed for Oracle

environments in the world† . Today, our joint customers are coming to us to understand how to prepare and execute on

their journey to the cloud and what this journey means to their Oracle DBA and IT infrastructure teams.

Cloud computing focuses on the abstraction, pooling and automation of IT infrastructure resources, designed to better

service multiple Oracle databases and applications. While achieving this goal for IT as a whole, cloud computing

should also provide DBAs the same level of control and efficiency they are used to in Oracle software, but enable the

acceleration of their tactical and strategic management tasks, including:

• Oracle performance tuning and optimization • Capacity planning and growth management

• Database lifecycle management • Backup and recovery

• Local and remote data protection • Active-active cluster management

Oracle IT Management Gap Today

In this EMC guide we will discuss a variety of ways in

which small investments in IT infrastructure can have

dramatic effect in helping DBAs accomplish daily

management tasks faster and more efficiently. This

increase in DBA productivity in their daily activities frees

up time to focus on value-add processes and innovation.

The benefits of an EMC virtual infrastructure plug into

nearly all Oracle environments today, without changing

the Oracle database software or applications, and lays a

foundation for IT as a whole to leverage cloud computing

across all application environments.

INTRODUCTION

†Source IDC Storage User Demand Study, 2012 - Fall Edition: Many Uses of Internal Storage, doc #241840, June 2013.









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This journey to a cloud-enabled infrastructure is not just about technology. To successfully transform IT to deliver IT-as-a-

Service, IT organizations need to redefine their existing processes and skillsets. In the new cloud model there will be new

roles in IT, such as cloud architects and cloud administrators. The roles of these new IT professionals will focus on building

infrastructure across multiple databases & applications, defining specific service levels for those unique environments as

well as metering and reporting. They will also manage prioritizing how new services will be added and develop self-service

catalog processes.

What does this mean for today’s Oracle DBA?

What we see in talking with thousands of

Oracle customers is that during this shift

to cloud computing the role of the DBA

continues to be a vital role and is only

increasing in responsibility. However, a

recent study done by the IOUG showed that

most Oracle DBAs still spend too much time

and budget for ongoing management of

their current Oracle environments. In fact we

surveyed Oracle DBAs on where they spend

the most time daily maintaining their Oracle

database environments.

The Role of the DBA in the Cloud

To help address this, over the past 12-18 months EMC has worked closely with Oracle to jointly engineer Solutions which

combine EMC software and platforms with Oracle software to help DBAs with:

• Optimizing Oracle Performance

• Oracle Scalability Without Disruption

• Accelerate Oracle Lifecycle Management

• Enhance Oracle Backup & Recovery

• Application Consistent Oracle Data Protection

• Non-Stop Oracle Data Access

REDEFINING THE ROLE OF THE DBA









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The Role of the DBA in the Cloud

Building off of the IOUG Research, EMC worked with a 3rd party analyst, Wikibon, to interview EMC and Oracle customers on

the sum of impact these EMC capabilities can have on the productivity of Oracle DBAs. By leveraging the core capabilities of

EMC virtual infrastructure - including automation in storage tiering, flash and virtualization, and backup and data protection

capabilities – Wikibon’s research concluded that DBAs can spend 27% more time on value-add activities.

27-50% More Time for Proactive Initiatives

In addition, when converged infrastructure

VCE Vblock® Systems were used, an additional

23% of time was saved due to the integrated

nature of Vblock Systems to automate tasks

such as performance, provisioning and capacity

management as well as availability of the

infrastructure.

The following sections of this EMC Perspective

will offer a detailed review of benefits EMC’s

virtual infrastructure provides DBAs including the

following:

• EMC Solution testing and proven results

• Jointly engineered integration with

Oracle software

• Customer case studies and use case

examples









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Due to the varying nature of Oracle workloads, the underlying storage infrastructure should be approached not as a single

monolithic entity, but as intelligent, dynamic and automated tiering storage architecture.

EMC believes in a tiered storage approach, which allows Oracle DBAs the choice of optimizing their infrastructure for

performance, scalability, and flexibility. This starts by first choosing the appropriate tier of storage itself, between high

performance flash drives, high capacity SATA drives, and traditional FC drives. For the past several years, we have worked

actively with Oracle customers, utilizing Oracle Automated Workload Repository (AWR) reports to identify which Oracle data

should be placed on which tiers of storage. The AWR report is a good way to identify those Oracle workloads well suited

for flash drives, for example, identifying the top five wait events, or where you have a high degree of random reads and

writes. Once tiered storage is deployed however, Oracle workloads will change in a day, week, or month. The process of

reconfiguring storage can be time consuming and often involve downtime to the database.

Evolution of Flash Technology

EMC introduced Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST™) as a

means to automate this provisioning process and perform tiering

at the Oracle block level. FAST provides the automation to place

and move data to the appropriate storage tier while significantly

reducing storage administration time. DBAs can set policies around

which databases or specific parts of the database should have

priority for performance during different times of the day or as

certain performance thresholds are reached.

EMC is expanding the use of FAST to take advantage of targeted use of flash at different layers of the Oracle I/O path for

maximized performance and reduced response times:

• EMC FAST Virtual Pools (FAST VP™) enables the underlying storage resources to automatically adapt to new database

polices set by the Oracle DBA in up to 9X less time than traditional storage architecture, alleviating the DBA’s

management burden and maintaining maximized performance as workloads changeover time.

• EMC FAST Cache uses flash drives to add an extra layer of cache between DRAM cache and rotating disk drives, thereby

creating a faster medium for storage frequently accessed data. FAST Cache is an extendable read/write cache which

tracks data activity at a granularity of 64 KB and promotes hot data into FAST Cache by copying it from the HDDs to flash

OPTIMIZE ORACLE PERFORMANCE









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drives assigned to FAST Cache. Subsequent I/O access to that data is handled by the flash drives and is serviced at

flash drive response times, for very low latency. FAST Cache is particularly suited for Oracle database applications that

generate a large number of random I/Os that experience sudden bursts in user query activity or high, concurrent user

loads where the data set fits within the flash drive cache.

• FAST VP automatically moves data to the most appropriate storage tier based on sustained data access and demands over

time. FAST Cache automatically absorbs unexpected spikes in application workloads for burst-prone data. FAST Cache can

be used alone or with FAST VP and EMC testing has shown that the addition of FAST Cache can double Oracle transactions

per minute (TPM) in a virtualized Oracle database environment running VMware.

• EMC XtremCache is a server flash caching solution that uses intelligent caching software and PCIe flash technology

to reduce the latency and increase throughput which dramatically improves application performance. XtremCache

automatically identifies frequently accessed read data and promotes that data to the flash on the PCIe card, alleviating

I/O pressure from the storage array which accelerates performance and complements FAST VP. Since frequently accessed

data now is located on dedicated storage inside the server, I/O service times are greatly reduced. Used in combination,

XtremCache and the FAST Suite further streamline data delivery across the data continuum which provides an end-

to-end tiering solution that optimizes Oracle capacity and performance from the server to the storage. XtremCache is

particularly beneficial for read-intensive applications such as Oracle OLTP environments. EMC testing with VMware has

shown adding XtremCache can nearly triple Oracle transactions per minute (TPM) and reduce I/O latency by 60-80% in a

virtualized Oracle database environment running VMware.









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By applying EMC FAST Suite and flash technology within the storage array, storage network or Oracle database server

itself, EMC has shown that just a little flash can go a long way in maximizing Oracle database performance.

As customers virtualize their Oracle databases they will need to scale performance as more virtualized servers and users

are added to the database environment. EMC recently performed a series of tests to document Oracle OLTP database

performance in a virtualized environment using both EMC Symmetrix VMAX® and VNX® platforms with EMC XtremCache.

The results demonstrate the ability to use EMC XtremCache to scale performance linearly to nearly 3 million IOPs, adding

virtualized database servers and user access, while maintaining sub-millisecond response times.

Virtualized Oracle Query IOPS on EMC VMAX Virtualized Oracle Query IOPS on EMC VMAX with XtremCache with XtremCache

For those customers running Oracle over NFS, EMC has an added option to leverage Oracle Direct NFS (dNFS) together with

EMC Unified Storage. Oracle dNFS is an optimized NFS (Network File System) client that provides faster and more scalable

access to NFS storage located on NAS storage devices. Direct NFS provides faster performance that what can be provided

by the operating system’s NFS driver as Oracle bypasses the operating system and generates exactly the requests it needs

(no user configuration or tuning required). Data is cached just once in user space, which saves memory (no second copy in

kernel space). Performance is further improved by load balancing across multiple network interfaces (if available).









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Once Oracle databases are deployed and begin to scale, DBAs will need to extend existing databases or create new

database instances. Both of these tasks require engagement with storage infrastructure. Traditionally, administrators

allocate database space and storage capacity based on anticipated future growth. This is done to mitigate recurring

operational activities such as incrementally increasing storage allocations, or adding discrete blocks of storage as space

is consumed. This approach results in more storage allocated than is actually needed over an extended period of time. In

other examples, database administrators may pre-allocate large amounts of storage for data files or table spaces to ensure

sufficient free space within the database.

The operating system sees space as completely allocated but in reality, internally only a fraction of the allocated space

might be used. In both scenarios, capacity is wasted and can pose opportunities to speed allocation of capacity to Oracle

DBAs where and when it’s needed.

EMC Virtual Provisioning™ allows more storage to be presented to a host operating system than is physically available. Virtual

provisioning can allocate physical storage only when the storage is actually written to, allowing more efficient storage use and

lower cost. Virtual provisioning also stripes the data across disks in the thin pool regardless of whether a small or large thin

device or database object is created, and alleviates the need for time-consuming storage–layout planning.

EMC Virtual Storage Provisioning for Oracle

This allows the seamless addition of more physical storage as the

demand for the Oracle database application grows. While increasing

the available capacity, more physical disks can also improve the

application’s I/O performance because of wider striping and more

back-end spindles to drive I/O traffic.

For those customers running VMware Sphere on their Oracle database

servers, VMware Dynamic Resource Scheduler (DRS) aggregates

vSphere host resources into clusters and automatically distributes

these resources across virtual machines by monitoring utilization and

continuously optimizing virtual machine distribution across vSphere

hosts. Combined with EMC Virtual Storage Provisioning, Oracle server

and storage resources can be optimized for growth management and

capacity planning even as Oracle workloads change.

SCALE ORACLE FASTER WITHOUT

DISRUPTION









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Production Oracle database environments create within them an ecosystem of supporting environments used for tasks

such as fast online recovery, software or hardware maintenance, and test and development. All of these tasks need to be

performed off of copies separate from the production database to avoid impacting IT operations. Historically Oracle DBAs

have relied on server-based replication copying Oracle data over corporate LAN environments. This process can be time

consuming and also impact production database performance or in some cases require production database downtime

to accomplish. In addition, refreshing environments with this approach can take hours or even days depending on the

size of the environment. Through EMC virtual infrastructure, DBAs have access to different types of replication options

executed within the storage infrastructure itself. One example is full volume-for-volume copies of the entire Oracle database

environment. These are used to create fully recoverable copies of the Oracle database. This process leverages EMC clones

that provide not just full copies of the actual data, but also add an EMC technology called consistency groups. These are

important because many Oracle databases will span multiple LUNs within the storage array. As transactions continue to be

processed during the replication process it is critical to assure, with clones, that the new copy is transactionally consistent

with the source database so that it can be used for effective and fast recovery.

While full database clones are useful for full recovery, they are also time consuming to create as they copy all data on a

block-for-block basis, not to mention they consume large amounts of storage space. With this in mind, EMC enables the use

of “snaps” as a cost-effective alternative to clones. Snaps are space-saving copies that store the data in memory versus

disk. Because RAM is much faster for storage and retrieval than physical drive space, speed is a benefit. Point-in-time

images are made quickly without causing undo impact to host applications. Another benefit is the extra storage space this

leaves available for other information. EMC snap copies take a smaller percentage of the capacity required for the source,

and that’s only the space necessary to protect the original data’s integrity, which would subsequently be overwritten on

the source volume. To enable the power of these replication tools into the hands of the Oracle DBA, EMC developed a

technology called EMC Replication Manager. DBAs can use a centralized management console to manage EMC point-in-

time replication technologies and coordinate the entire data replication process – from discovery and configuration to the

management of multiple application consistent disk-based replicas.

ACCELERATE ORACLE LIFECYCLE

MANAGEMENT









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EMC Replication Manager for Oracle

EMC has also worked closely with Oracle to combine

the use of a new Oracle feature called “clonedb” which

allows Oracle DBAs to create read and writeable snaps

off of EMC snaps using only a fraction of allocated

storage capacity. Storage is consumed only at the rate

at which Oracle data is modified within the snaps,

providing an ideal solution to setup large amounts of

Oracle copies for supporting environments, like test and

development









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Backup and recovery management using Oracle RMAN is a core task for nearly every Oracle DBA. For many customers,

the time required to backup Oracle (even with incremental backups) can impact production database availability and

performance, and over time, backups consume excessive amounts of storage.

EMC Data Domain Boost™ integration with Oracle Recovery Manager provides the industry’s first solution that gives the

database administrator complete control of backup and disaster recovery processes. DD Boost for RMAN distributes parts of

the deduplication process to the Oracle database server, which increases performance and enables Oracle RMAN to directly

manage Data Domain® replication.

Specifically, this can increase backup performance up to 50 percent, reduce LAN bandwidth requirements up to 99 percent

through deduplication, and reduce the overall impact on the Oracle server by 20 to 40 percent.

50% Faster Backups for Oracle DBA’s

To enable even greater efficiency, DD Boost for RMAN

is compatible with Oracle block change tracking (BCT).

With DD Boost for RMAN configured and BCT enabled,

when an incremental backup is run, the RMAN script will

direct the backup to read the tracking file. Then, without

scanning the entire file system, only unique data is

sent from the Oracle server to the Data Domain system.

Integration of Oracle RMAN and Data Domain Boost

empowers both the DBAs and IT teams to:

• Retain backups longer – By deduplicating data before it

is backed up, more data can be stored online at lower

cost. This allows for the retention of more Oracle data

for longer periods of time, and the performance of

more frequent full backups vs. incremental backups.

• Replicate smarter – Data Domain systems only move deduplicated data over existing networks with up to 99 percent

bandwidth efficiency for fast, cost-effective disaster recovery.

EMC Data Domain and DD Boost also support EMC Avamar®, EMC NetWorker® and third-party backup applications to help

enable centralized backup and recovery across the entire IT landscape.

ENHANCE ORACLE BACKUP AND RECOVERY









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As more applications and databases are consolidated in Oracle environments, keeping that infrastructure available

continuously becomes even more critical to avoid business disruption. Many Oracle customers use Oracle DataGuard to

protect their databases, but DataGuard does not enable protection of the entire software and infrastructure stack.

Some customer SLAs require fast, complete recovery of all application components, not just the database files. EMC

RecoverPoint™ is a comprehensive data-protection solution providing concurrent local and remote data protection. It is

fully leveraged through EMC Replication Manager as an additional replication solution option for Oracle DBAs.

RecoverPoint is a technology that resides in the network allowing all Oracle writes to be tracked in a Recovery Journal before

they are written to disk.

Oracle data is then compressed and deduplicated before shipping to a remote site, reducing the network bandwidth

requirements up to 90 percent to allow for longer distance replication. Should a recovery be necessary, the Recovery

Journal can be used to roll back the complete Oracle software stack to any point in time for full recovery.

For those customers running VMware on their Oracle database servers, VMware Site Recovery Manager can be used with

EMC RecoverPoint to orchestrate the recovery of either physical or virtualized Oracle servers. Furthermore, leveraging

VMware virtual machines, DBAs can also quickly and transparently failover production to another set of virtual servers and

perform recovery in a secure, separate environment to see what recovery would look like in the event of a disaster.

More Efficient Data Protection for Oracle DBAs

The standby environment continues to have read/write

access, increasing the return on investment while also

dramatically strengthening data protection. By leveraging EMC

RecoverPoint and VMware Site Recovery Manager™, DBAs can

protect the entire Oracle stack faster and more completely.

CONSISTENT ORACLE DATA PROTECTION









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Many Oracle customers leverage Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) which enables Oracle databases to be run across

multiple servers with simultaneous read/write access. Oracle RAC users have been challenged to stretch their Oracle RAC

configurations over distance, and as a result, most RAC users have single-site configurations and leverage host-based or

array-based data replication solutions for disaster recovery.

EMC VPLEX® is a technology deployed in the storage area network which enables the same data to exist in two separate

geographical locations and be accessed and updated in both locations at the same time. Working with Oracle, VPLEX Metro

provides Oracle RAC users simultaneous access to the same data—at both locations—yet it’s easily managed as though it’s

only one site. The Oracle hosts need only to connect to the local VPLEX cluster with no complex cross-connect, and there

are no costly host CPU cycles consumed on mirroring - I/O is sent only once from host to the VPLEX, then VPLEX manages

the replication

Non-Stop Oracle Data Access Over Distance

Oracle RAC clusters today can be stretched across

data centers, but the distance is limited with Oracle

recommendations to keep RAC nodes within 10 kilometers.

EMC VPLEX extends the ability of Oracle RAC to be in active-

active mode up to 100 kilometers distance between sites.

This allows greater distance for Oracle stretch RAC clusters

while keeping the round trip time to 5 milliseconds or less.

CONTINUOUS AVAILABILITY FOR

MISSION-CRITICAL ORACLE









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With all of these benefits available to Oracle DBA, IT organizations are evaluating the best approach to take in deploying IT

infrastructure for Oracle. Some Oracle IT organizations are evaluating the use of engineered systems to standardize their

IT infrastructure. Many are considering a horizontal, virtualized approach to IT infrastructure. Before a standardization

approach is taken however, Oracle customers should carefully evaluate at what level they should standardize infrastructure

given the environment they have in place today. For example:

• What existing database versions and applications am I running?

• How am I backing up and protecting those applications today?

• Will my applications run unchanged on this new infrastructure?

• Will the DBA process I have in place (ex: cloning, disaster recover) still apply?

EMC’s belief is that Oracle customers should be empowered with the flexibility and choice to optimize their existing

Oracle database environments, without modifying database software, applications or DBA processes, but still get

the benefits of engineered systems. Furthermore, these benefits should be available not just to Oracle database

environments, but mixed workload environments, as over 90 percent of Oracle customers today run more than

just Oracle.†

Three Paths to the Cloud

To help Oracle customers achieve this, EMC

offers three flexible paths toward private cloud

computing. The first path is leveraging a best of

breed combination of EMC hardware and software,

integrated with Oracle software. EMC offers a

portfolio of validated solutions, services, and

technologies that provide everything you need to

build the infrastructure that is right for you.

This portfolio targets each area of the Oracle infrastructure stack with the goals of increasing performance, driving efficiency,

and lowering risk. All of the best practices described in this paper are offered as part of EMC’s best-of-breed solutions for

Oracle customers.

THREE PATHS TO THE CLOUD

†Source IOUG Enterprise Platform Decision Survey 2010 – Towards A Smarter Foundation









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The second path is EMC VSPEX™ Proven Infrastructure. EMC VSPEX is a partner-led offering that allows customer to leverage

proven Reference Architectures for design, but have flexibility of virtualization, server and network components. All of these

solutions are fully-tested and delivered by EMC partners. EMC VSPEX solutions come in a pre-bundled set of S/M/L sizing,

depending on the application and performance needs. The result is an IT infrastructure that is simple, efficient and flexible.

Finally, many Oracle customers wish to standardize the entire hardware infrastructure they deploy including server,

network and storage together. With Vblock Systems delivered through VCE, Oracle customers can get all the benefits of

standardization without compromise including:

• Single Product

• Single Point of Management and Support

• Integrated Data Protection Options

For Oracle environments specifically, Vblock Systems have been proven to have tremendous benefits:

• 3X more performance through optimized storage tiering and x86 architecture

• 5X faster deployment through less hand-offs between database, server, storage administrators

• 4X less staff resource time through a single point of management and control

• 3X lower cost through less server, storage and network infrastructure required









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EMC solutions and joint engineering with Oracle can unlock powerful benefits for Oracle Database Administrators, making them more productive in their daily tasks and freeing up time for innovation.

More Productivity and Control for Oracle DBAs

To help empower Oracle DBAs, EMC has established an open community for Oracle DBAs to interact directly with EMC’s Oracle Subject Matter Experts around the world.

EMC Community for Oracle Customers

This community acts as a centralized resource for DBAs to gain free access to all of EMC’s documented solutions for Oracle, as well as provides an interactive forum to discuss and share best practices with not only EMC’s experts, but fellow Oracle customers as well.

IMPROVE DBA PRODUCTIVITY AND CLOUD COMPUTING

EXPERTISE

EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo, VMAX®, VMX®, Data Domain®, Avamar®, NetWorker®, DataDomain Boost®, FAST®, XtremCache®, RecoverPoint®, VPLEX®, VSPEX® are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.© Copyright 2014 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA. 06/14 Handout H7424.3

EMC believes the information in this document is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.





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