Druva’s Oracle DTC Redirected Restore: Revolutionizing Database Cloning with Seamless Efficiency

Enterprises duplicate their databases for various purposes such as development and testing, database upgrades, backups, disaster recovery, and system migrations. However, cloning a database manually can be extremely cumbersome and complex. In this blog, we will deep dive into the concept of Oracle Database Cloning, common challenges organizations face while cloning a database manually, and how Druva’s Oracle DTC Redirected Restore (Database Cloning) solution, streamlines this process.

What is Oracle Database Cloning?

Oracle Database Cloning is the process of recreating an existing Oracle database. The cloned database can be used for a wide range of use cases such as:

1. Development and testing: Developers and QA teams often need replicas of the production environment to test applications, new features, or debug issues. Cloning facilitates them to work with data without impacting the live environment and risking the production database.

2. Database upgrades and migrations: When upgrading an Oracle database or migrating it to a new platform, a clone can be used testing and validating the upgrade or migration process before applying changes to production.

3. Disaster recovery and backup: One of the most crucial uses of cloning is ensuring business continuity via disaster recovery. Cloned databases can be used for faster recovery in the event of failures. They also enable point-in-time recovery testing to verify backup validity and enhance disaster recovery strategies.

4. Performance tuning and load testing: Before implementing changes to production, it’s important to benchmark and stress-test a database. A cloned database simulates real-world workloads, enabling DBAs to optimize queries and indexing without impacting live users.

5. Data masking and security testing: Cloned databases allow organizations to create secure copies of their production data by masking sensitive information for compliance testing, regulatory audits, and security assessments.

6. Training and education: A clone of the production database provides a realistic dataset for training employees on database administration, reporting, and analytics.

7. Business continuity and reporting: Running heavy analytical queries directly on a live database can cause serious performance issues. Using a cloned database for reporting reduces the load on the production environment.

Challenges with manual Database Cloning

While Oracle Database Cloning offers many benefits, manual cloning processes can be extremely complex and come with several challenges, depending on the methods used such as RMAN, Data Pump, hot backup, etc. Here are some common hurdles of manual database cloning:

1. Storage and performance Issues: Cloning large databases requires significant storage resources and insufficient space for redo logs, archive logs, or temporary tablespaces can cause performance issues.

2. Network and resource constraints: Cloning a database remotely over a slow network can not only be time-consuming but also high CPU or memory usage can negatively impact the performance of other applications running on the source server.

3. Configuration and compatibility issues: Differences in Oracle versions, patch levels, or operating system configurations between the source and target databases can lead to cloning failures.

4. Post-cloning tasks: After cloning the database, there are some additional manual tasks such as updating database parameters like DB_NAME and DB_UNIQUE_NAME. Additionally, you might also need to update the network settings and listeners to prevent conflicts.

5. Automation and scripting errors: You might need to modify the cloning scripts to suit your requirements, and errors in these scripts can lead to partial or failed clones. 

How Druva Solves the Challenges with Oracle DTC Redirected Restore

Druva’s Oracle DTC Redirected Restore solution addresses all of the above challenges seamlessly by providing an option to restore and recreate a database on an alternate host server. This option allows customers to easily clone their production database or any other utility databases on other hosts using the air-gapped copies of the database, ensuring a secure and efficient cloning process.

Here’s how it works:

1. Source database creation on target server: The process begins by creating a copy of the source database on the target server.
   

2. Data restoration and recovery: Data is restored from Druva’s cloud snapshots and recovered to the target server.
   

3. Renaming database: The restored database is renamed to the target name specified by the user.
   

Alternative Database Cloning Options

Druva provides various cloning options:

• Recreate a new database with minimal Server Parameters (SP File restore opted out) on an alternate database server.

• Recreate a new database using all the Server Parameters(SP File restore selected) from the source database.

• Update existing or add new Server Parameters for the restored database.

• Rename the existing database.

Key Benefits

• Running source database not required: One of the key benefits of our Oracle DTC solution is that we do not need the source database to be up and running because the cloning process leverages data from snapshots in the Druva Cloud. This frees you of the burden of impacting live operations.

• Minimal storage requirements: Since the data is restored directly from the cloud, no additional storage is needed on the target server, significantly reducing the complexity and cost associated with cloning.

Features of Oracle DTC Redirected Restore

Let’s discover some of the powerful features that make Druva’s Oracle DTC solution the ideal choice for seamless, efficient, and secure database cloning. 

• Effortless redirected restore: Leverage previous full or incremental Druva backups for a quick and seamless restore process.

• Point-in-time cloning: Clone databases at a specific point-in-time using the PIT restore option.

• Proactive restore pre-checks: Before restoring the database, our solution runs a series of pre-checks to ensure the target server is compatible with the source database, to avoid potential restore failures. These include:
  

  • Source and target database name checks to ensure no existing database is impacted

  • Compatible OS and Oracle Database instance version

  • Device connection

  • Free space and memory availability

  • Oracle Home and Oracle Base paths

  • Restore Location and its permissions

If any issues are encountered, you can make the necessary corrections, re-run the checks, and proceed with the cloning process.

Why Choose Druva’s Oracle DTC

Druva’s Oracle DTC data offers a wide range of advantages including:

• Fully automated process: The cloning process is automated, reducing manual intervention and saving time.
  

• Proactive pre-checks: Built-in pre-checks help DBAs make informed decisions before initiating the cloning process, saving time and reducing risks.
  

• No extra storage overhead: Requires no extra storage beyond the size of the database being restored.
  

• Direct restoration from cloud: This eliminates the need for intermediary storage solutions, ensuring a more efficient restoration process.
  

• Snapshot and point-in-time recovery: Clone databases at a specific point-in-time for various purposes like testing, upgrades, or disaster recovery.
  

• Support for RAC and standby databases: Our solution also supports restoring RAC databases as standalone instances or converting standby databases to primary databases as and when required.
  

Conclusion

Oracle DTC Redirected Restore offers an efficient, fully automated solution to organizations for cloning their Oracle databases seamlessly. By leveraging Druva’s cloud-based backup and restore technology, organizations can reduce the complexity, time, and cost associated with manual cloning processes.

Interested in learning more about Druva’s innovative cloud-based backup and restore solutions? Visit our tech/engineering section of the blog archive to discover how we’re revolutionizing database management and delivering the best-in-class backup solutions.