Dell PowerStore Native Integration with Dell PowerProtect DD Series Appliances for DP in Oracle Environments
Wed, 10 May 2023 13:29:40 -0000
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Having many years of production database experience, I know DBAs will be eager to give this new capability a try.
PowerStoreOS 3.5 has just been released and with it comes more data protection capabilities. This translates into a more robust arsenal of tools and capabilities for the DBA’s tool kit. The feature provides a way to quickly backup, restore, and thinly provision database clones for different environments from a remote data source!
There are several data protection enhancements added to PowerStoreOS 3.5. One that excites me is a native backup solution that integrates with remote data storage appliances: Dell PowerProtect DD series appliances.
Integration with PowerProtect DD series appliances
The native integration from PowerStore to PowerProtect DD series appliances allows DBAs to create a crash consistent backup image of a database in the form of a remote snapshot. Administrators can initiate this remote snapshot directly from PowerStore Manager with a remote connection to a PowerProtect DD appliance. Because the snapshot is created directly on the PowerProtect DD appliance, no additional storage is consumed on PowerStore, making this backup strategy storage efficient. This close integration significantly streamlines the process of transmitting backups to the remote PowerProtect DD Series appliance by eliminating the need for a dedicated backup host, and reduces time and complexity.
This removes the worries of having to work with other types of remote storage, including tape, for your Oracle crash consistent images!
Remote Backup Rules
New to PowerStoreOS 3.5 is a new protection rule called a Remote Backup Rule, which sets a schedule by which remote snapshots are taken. The rule allows users to create remote crash consistent Oracle database snapshots on a PowerProtect DD Series appliance.
A Remote Backup Rule can be scheduled for any day of the week with a frequency of every 6, 12, or 24 hours, or at a specific time of day. The default retention period for the remote snapshots is 7 days but can be configured up to 70 years!
After a Remote Backup Rule is created, it can be added to a protection Policy. In the following figure, remote backup rule ORA-ASM-DB2 has been added to the ORA-ASM-DB2 protection policy.
After the remote backup rule is added to a protection policy, the protection policy can be assigned to the storage resource used by the Oracle database, such as a volume group with write-order consistency enabled. The following figure shows that the PowerStore volume group ORA-ASM-DB2 is assigned the ORA-ASM-DB2 protection policy.
Remote snapshots will now be automatically generated, based on the defined schedule in the remote backup rule ORA-ASM-DB2.
Creating remote snapshots
Creating remote snapshots are just clicks away! To create a remote snapshot manually, select Protection, then Remote Backup. Click BACKUP SESSIONS, select the desired backup session, then click BACKUP. That’s all that’s needed to create the snapshot on the remote PowerProtect DD appliance.
Effortless retrieval of remote backups of Oracle databases
The PowerStoreOS 3.5 retrieve option has several use cases. Here I’ll mention two. One is to retrieve a remote snapshot for a currently existing PowerStore resource and restore it. Another is to create a thin clone of the PowerStore resource from the retrieved remote snapshot. For Oracle databases, the PowerStore resource is the PowerStore Volume Group that contains the volumes that are hosting the Oracle database.
To retrieve a remote snapshot for a volume group, it’s as simple as six mouse clicks from the Remote Backup feature!:
RESOURCES --> select the PowerStore resource --> MANAGE SNAPSHOTS:
Select the remote snapshot --> RETRIEVE --> RETRIEVE:
When the PowerStore storage resources have been recovered by the snapshot, simply start the Oracle database and Oracle does the rest with crash recovery.
Conclusion
PowerStoreOS 3.5 provides enhanced data protection features that simplify the DBA’s tasks of taking backups, recoveries, restores, and cloning databases with a few mouse clicks. DBAs will find this feature a great tool for their toolkit.
PowerStoreOS 3.5 is truly a game changer! This new data protection capability is just one of the numerous features introduced in PowerStoreOS 3.5. Be sure to keep an eye out for additional blog posts that showcase these valuable features.
Author: Mark Tomczik