Oracle Data Guard OTN Case Study: VP BANK

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1 Oracle Data Guard OTN Case Study: VP BANK OVERVIEW Corporate Profile A leader in private banking for wealthy private clients $21 billion (US) in assets under management. Disaster Recovery Solution Oracle Data Guard SQL Apply (Logical Standby) Redo Apply (Physical Standby) Data protection for central content management system Standby databases serve as deployment databases providing read access outside of firewall to support customer facing web applications Local disaster recovery and high availability for internal and external users VP Bank uses Oracle Data Guard for data protection and to ensure the high availability of its customer facing web applications. The primary database in one of the VP Bank s Data Guard configurations is the central repository for the bank s internal content management system. Data Guard Redo Apply is used to maintain an exact replica of the primary database within the bank s firewall, providing local disaster recovery and protection against data corruption. In this same configuration, VP Bank also uses Data Guard SQL Apply to maintain two additional standby databases that are deployment versions of the content management system. These standby databases are logical copies of the content management system and are located outside the firewall, providing bank customers with a central point of access to all Internet banking services. As web content is approved for publishing, Data Guard propagates the resulting transaction though the firewall to the deployment databases maintained by SQL Apply. The new content is available to users because SQL Apply allows read access while it continues to update the standby database with subsequent transactions. The SQL Apply deployment databases manage all web site content. Transaction oriented activities payments, buy/sell orders, etc, are executed by other databases located outside VP Bank s firewall in a second Data Guard configuration protected by Redo Apply.. In the event of a failure of the content management system, Data Guard Redo Apply will fail over to to the standby server, without affecting the role or availability of either deployment system. In the event of the failure of a deployment server, Internet users are automatically redirected to the surviving system for continuous access to the bank s online services. INTRODUCTION VP Bank is located in Liechtenstein, a picturesque country located in a mountain valley between Switzerland and Austria. Liechtenstein's tax and political systems, its strict bank secrecy, and its long history of political stability has made her a giant among the world s financial centers. As a result, Liechtenstein s residents can boast of having the highest average per capita income in the world. BUSINESS STRATEGY VP Bank s primary business objective is to preserve and continually grow the $21 billion in assets entrusted to it. It has subsidiaries in Zurich, Luxembourg, and on the British Virgin Islands, as well as representative offices in Munich, and Montevideo (Uruguay). Within the scope of international private banking services, VP Bank offers tailor-made solutions to wealthy private investors, 1

2 fiduciaries, attorneys and asset managers. VP Bank has been successful by being an innovator in providing electronic access by its clients to its many services. The hi-profile of its clients and the time critical nature of the information and services offered by the bank makes the high availability of VP Bank s IT systems extremely important. VP Bank cannot tolerate any disruption in the availability of its on-line services. System Configuration 2 Data Centers each with the following configuration Internet Web Server Sunfire V240, 2GB memory,2*36gb local storage, Solaris 9 Internet DB Server Deployment System Sunfire V420, 2GB memory, 4*36GB local storage, Solaris 9 Production DB Server Content Management System Sunfire V480, 16GB memory, Solaris 9 Production Storage 1TB SAN Oracle9i Database Release Disaster Recovery Requirements VP Bank had the following requirements for their Disaster Recovery solution: Minimal data loss in the case of failure of the primary database The ability to automatically propagate content from the primary database, across the firewall, to a transactionally consistent deployment database. The ability to maintain a second deployment database, transactionally consistent with the first, without requiring additional management or processing overhead on other database servers. Both deployment databases must allow read access as new data is received from the development system. They can be no more than 1 hour behind in applying transactions received from the primary database. The Disaster Recovery solution must easily accommodate role transitions that address failures on multiple dimensions for both planned and unplanned outages. The primary database must be able to failover to a standby database without impacting users on the deployment systems. A planned or unplanned outage of either deployment system must not impact the primary database or the availability of the remaining deployment system. Either deployment system must be able to assume the workload of the other. It must take no longer than 5 minutes to transition roles between any two servers during planned or unplanned outages. Minimizing financial cost is a significant requirement. The Disaster Recovery solution should not require additional staff to implement or manage. It must not require modifying applications. It must insure consistency of data in an automated fashion that does not increase management overhead for database administrators. The DR solution must accommodate planned hardware maintenance and regular testing of DR procedures, without requiring extra effort or downtime exceeding that specified in the above requirements. CHOSEN SOLUTION: ORACLE DATA GUARD VP Bank chose Oracle Data Guard because it satisfies its unique combination of requirements while providing a comprehensive Disaster Recovery Solution. 2

3 Disaster Recovery Architecture Data Guard Configuration Redo Apply (Physical Standby) SQL Apply (Logical Standby) Maximum Performance LGWR/ASYNC One Physical and two Logical Standby Databases in the same Data Guard Configuration Firewall separating primary and logical standby databases The overall solution architecture is provided in Figure 1. VP Bank uses Data Guard Redo Apply to create a standby database that is an exact replica of the content management system (primary database). The standby database resides on a server located on the same LAN, but in a second computer room to provide local disaster recovery protection for the content management system. VP Bank uses Data Guard SQL Apply to implement two additional standby databases in the same Data Guard configuration. Each standby database is a logical copy of the primary database. The logical standbys serve as the deployment systems located outside of the bank s firewall to provide web access for the bank s customers for account information and all bank services. Fig. 1: VP Bank Data Guard Architecture Data Guard is configured in Maximum Performance protection mode using LGWR ASYNC transport mode. In parallel with normal processing, Data Guard writes redo to an in-memory buffer on the primary server and uses Oracle Net Services to ship it asynchronously to the standby servers. In Oracle9i the buffer is configurable up to a maximum of 10MB, providing administrators with the flexibility to control the potential data loss in the event of a severe outage of the primary system. The same transport mechanism is used for both Redo and SQL Apply. 3

4 Each standby server receives redo transmitted by the LGWR ASYNC process and writes it to an archive log file. A log switch on the primary database triggers the process of applying these archived log files to the standby databases (in Oracle Database 10g the Data Guard apply process executes in near realtime, and is not dependent upon a primary log switch). The method used by the apply process is where Redo and SQL Apply differ. Redo Apply uses the Managed Recovery Process to apply redo to the standby database such that is a block for block replica of the primary. In contrast, SQL Apply uses the Logical Standby Process (LSP) that transforms redo data into SQL statements and applies SQL to the standby database. This maintains a standby database as a logical replica of the primary system and has the benefit of allowing users read access while the apply engine is running. CONCLUSION: SEEING IS BELIEVING Oracle Data Guard Benefits Data Protection minimal data loss No DBA intervention required to maintain 4 transactionally consistent databases (one primary and three standbys) Roles can be transitioned across multiple dimensions, making it easy to test the disaster recovery system, easier to do planned maintenance, and easy to fail over when necessary Data Guard is the mechanism used to promote content from the web content management system, to the deployment systems accessed by bank clients No extra cost Data Guard is an integrated feature of the Oracle Database Server Enterprise Edition The system implemented by VP Bank is in production, and can be accessed online at: Oracle Data Guard provides a comprehensive and easy to manage solution for local disaster recovery. It also satisfies requirements for maintaining a read-only version of the primary database for reporting and query purposes. In this example, this capability was used to implement a secure and reliable mechanism to deploy content originating from a content management system to deployment servers located outside the bank s firewall. Through a creative use of Data Guard SQL Apply, VP Bank has accomplished the following: VP Bank protects data in their central content management system from potential loss in the event of planned or unplanned disruptions. VP Bank has automated the maintenance of multiple deployment systems, and has done so with minimal incremental effort in a secure and highly available fashion, simply by using additional capabilities provided with Oracle Data Guard. VP Bank kept administration and acquisition costs to a minimum. VP Bank can offer the high level of service expected from an institution that serves the world s wealthiest clients. 4

5 Data Guard Case Study December 2004 Authors: Phil Grice, Joe Meeks, Ashish Ray Oracle Corporation World Headquarters 500 Oracle Parkway Redwood Shores, CA U.S.A. Worldwide Inquiries: Phone: Fax: Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. Various product and service names referenced herein may be trademarks of Oracle Corporation. All other product and service names mentioned may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright 2004 Oracle Corporation All rights reserved.