FAQ. Frequently Asked Questions About Oracle Virtualization

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1 Frequently Asked Questions About Oracle IT professionals in businesses of all sizes are discovering the transformative potential of virtualization. From core infrastructure services to mission-critical applications, virtualized systems significantly improve IT operations, drive down total cost of ownership (TCO) and transform data centers into profit centers. Many organizations are eager to virtualize their Oracle environments, but they hesitate: Oracle databases and the applications they support are often among an enterprise s most critical infrastructure, and it can be a daunting proposition to make changes to mission-critical assets. While it s wise to be cautious, don t let caution halt your progress. software is mature and ready for enterprise-grade deployments, including mission-critical Oracle environments. Additionally, today s x86 servers are designed with virtualization in mind and have more than enough horsepower to support demanding applications as well as virtualization overhead. The following frequently asked questions highlight some important points to consider as you move toward transforming your Oracle environments with virtualization. Organizations virtualize their Oracle environments for the same reason they virtualize other systems: to solve problems. Oracle environments are often silos of physical infrastructure that are complicated to provision and manage, requiring cooperation among multiple data center teams. And then, once an Oracle instance is up and running, database administrators (DBA) lose control of its data because it becomes entwined with other enterprise processes, such as backup and recovery, storage administration and business continuity. This state of affairs can lead to overspending on hardware and inefficient, error-prone operations. Oracle DBAs work most effectively when they have greater control over and insight into data and the storage it lives on. can I expect from Simply put, virtualization can help make DBAs jobs easier. Once Oracle applications are virtualized, DBAs can simplify and automate the tasks that consume most of their time and attention, such as provisioning new Oracle instances, tuning storage, and backing up and restoring data. This automation makes data center operations much more efficient,

2 freeing DBAs to proactively pursue strategic projects as opposed to reactively maintaining Oracle systems. With virtualization and expanded tools that simplify management, DBAs can retain control over data throughout its lifecycle. Virtualizing Oracle applications can also significantly reduce operating expenses, including licensing costs. allows you to consolidate multiple physical servers onto a single platform, and since Oracle software is often licensed per physical processor socket or core, you can reduce the number of licenses you must purchase. affect backup and disaster Because modern disk-based backup and recovery solutions leverage deduplication, DBAs can significantly reduce backup and recovery times for virtual environments as well as the amount of storage required for backups. These disk-based solutions overcome the challenges associated with traditional backup approaches, which struggle as environments become more highly virtualized. In addition, backup solutions that are tightly integrated with hypervisors can boost speed and simplify backup and recovery with advanced options and capabilities. of virtualizing Oracle Most organizations will have already virtualized other systems by the time they consider expanding their virtualization strategy to include Oracle. Mission-critical environments are typically the final frontier for virtualization because they drive the business, and change introduces a degree of uncertainty and risk that administrators are often uncomfortable with. DBAs are concerned about getting the performance they need from virtualized systems, and many delay virtualization because they don t know how it will affect their Oracle support. Furthermore, Oracle virtualization options have traditionally been limited and have steered IT administrators toward costly engineered systems. However, organizations don t want to replace IT assets they already own with an engineered system that might not be fully utilized, even if it allows them to virtualize. DBAs are also accustomed to a set of tools to manage Oracle environments, and they are hesitant to make changes that might complicate their management tasks. Top Three Reasons to Virtualize Oracle Environments 1. can help make DBAs jobs easier through automation of time-consuming tasks, such as provisioning new Oracle instances. 2. enables more efficient data center operations, freeing DBAs to proactively pursue strategic projects as opposed to reactively maintaining Oracle systems. 3. can significantly reduce operating expenses, including per-cpu Oracle licensing costs, by consolidating multiple servers onto a single platform. Finally, virtualization creates new demands on backup. If DBAs are not confident that their databases can be protected and recovered they will resist virtualization. looking for to overcome these obstacles and move forward Businesses are looking for solutions that let them optimize their return on current IT investments and skill sets. With the rise of virtualization in other areas of the data center, 2

3 organizations have invested heavily in storage and x86-based servers, and sometimes in next-generation networking equipment to support the higher volumes of server-to-server traffic that are typical in virtualized environments. So organizations are looking for solutions that let them leverage their existing IT assets rather than rip-andreplace approaches. Such solutions are standards-based, so IT professionals, including Oracle DBAs, are empowered with flexibility and choice to optimize their existing Oracle environments, without modifying database software, applications or processes. Many IT organizations are evaluating the best approach to take in deploying IT infrastructure for Oracle. Some Oracle administrators are considering engineered systems to standardize their IT infrastructure, and many are considering a horizontal, virtualized approach. 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. Proprietary engineered systems are built for one application and often have stringent requirements in terms of what versions of that application they can run. Instead, IT organizations should seek out infrastructure that simplifies design and deployment and makes DBAs and IT teams more efficient, but is still flexible enough to leverage existing Oracle software and IT assets. EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure delivers a simple, easy-to-manage platform to leverage the benefits of virtualized Oracle database environments by consolidating production What Is EMC VSPEX? EMC VSPEX leverages proven reference architectures for design, while allowing flexibility in virtualization, server and network components. and pre-production environments into a unified infrastructure for greater simplicity. This platform eliminates the planning, sizing and configuration burdens that Oracle customers might encounter in virtualizing their Oracle environments. This enables your IT organization to streamline database and IT management operations and spend more time on innovation. The result is an IT infrastructure that is simple, efficient and flexible. All VSPEX configurations leverage proven EMC Backup and Recovery solutions, providing the protection and confidence needed to deploy virtualized Oracle. EMC Backup is optimized for virtualized application environments, reducing backup times by 90% and speeding recoveries by 30 times for worry-free protection. EMC backup appliances add another layer of security with end-to-end verification and self-healing for assured recovery. EMC VSPEX for Virtualized Oracle satisfies three critical requirements that must be met before Oracle administrators can confidently virtualize their applications and databases: performance, cost savings and management efficiency. 3

4 Ensure Outstanding Performance Since Oracle applications are often mission-critical, outstanding performance is non-negotiable. VSPEX helps deliver that performance with its topquality components, including VMware ESXi, your choice of server, Cisco or Brocade networking components, EMC VNX Unified Storage, and EMC Backup and Recovery technologies. EMC VNX storage provides additional performance gains for virtualized Oracle through its Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST) suite, which automatically assigns hot data to flash and cooler data to lower cost SATA drives. By leveraging a flash and storage tiering approach, VSPEX delivers up to three times greater performance for Oracle databases in a virtualized environment while reducing storage tuning by 80%. Further performance gains including up to 300% faster throughput are possible with EMC XtremSW Cache. This intelligent software works with a PCIe flash card in the server to accelerate response times in online transaction processing environments. Performance enhancements made possible with VSPEX extend to backup and recovery operations as well. EMC Backup can reduce backup times by 90% and cut backup bandwidth by as much as 99%, which enables the efficient off-site replication that eludes many Oracle shops. EMC Backup technology integrates with Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN), which gives DBAs control over backup, recovery and replication but stores the backup data on EMC backup appliances managed by a central team. This approach eliminates silos, increasing efficiency and lowering risk. Cost Savings Virtual infrastructure is the pathway to CPU consolidation, which in turn allows businesses to drive substantial savings in Oracle licensing costs. Such consolidation can increase utilization of CPU and capacity by as much as 80%, and helps organizations avoid overprovisioning of database infrastructure. Better use of server CPU and storage can also help optimize Oracle database license costs for customers purchasing Oracle on a per-cpu basis. In addition, EMC backup technology can slash the amount of storage required for backups by up to 30 times and storage management time by as much as 81%. These reductions contribute to an average time to payback of only seven months. DBA Efficiency and Control VSPEX delivers a comprehensive set of tools that simplifies and automates many of the tasks associated with the day-to-day operation of complex Oracle environments. For example, the tools enable simpler cloning and provisioning of new database instances and faster database refreshes through virtual machine templates. EMC storage and VMware enable new Oracle database environments to be provisioned in minutes or hours rather than days, increasing the productivity of IT assets. VSPEX also provides a unified view for managing the virtualized infrastructure, allowing DBAs, storage administrators and backup administrators to collaborate more efficiently. DBAs can create backups using Oracle RMAN like they always have, while 4

5 storage and backup administrators gain the visibility into Oracle backups that they need to do their jobs effectively. If you have put off virtualization of Oracle environments, now might be the right time to act. Data center storage, x86 servers and virtualization software are ready for demanding mission-critical applications, including Oracle, and virtualized infrastructure such as EMC VSPEX can deliver all of the benefits of virtualization along with cost savings that might surprise you. To learn more, contact EMC or your local EMC business partner. Sponsored by: 5