Friday, December 3, 2010

Oracle Golden Gate Questions and Answers


Golden Gate Questions and Answers
1)
Is GoldenGate certified for Oracle E-business Suite Release 12. The metalink note 1112325.1t suggest that it can be used for EBS reporting . Is it a certified combination.
2)
There is a feature called Syncfile in Goldengate. Can this be used for E-business suite file synching (binaries file synching to Disaster Recovery site) ? The below URL gives a hint about it.
www.oracle.com/goldengate/goldengate-faq.pdf

3) So many people use Data Guard,  It seems GG can also do the same thing. It can read from the redologs and apply them. Shouldn’t we use GG instead of DataGuard. What are the pros and cons of both.

4) GG versus Oracle Advanced Replication?

5) Is the GG mainly a data replication solution and doesn’t offer any file synchronization ? What about SynFile feature.

6) Are we saying GG is mainly data replication solution and doesn’t offer any file synchronization ?

7) GG and DataGuard are licensed together .Can you shed some light on it.

8) GG can help upgrading the database from 9i to 11g . How is that possible ?

Oracle Answers.

Question 1:
Is GoldenGate certified for Oracle E-business Suite Release 12. The metalink note 1112325.1t suggest that it can be used for EBS reporting . Is it a certified combination.
Answer:
The Knowledge document Doc ID 1112325.1 describes using Oracle GoldenGate with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.1 for operational reporting, in which selected tables are replicated from the primary Oracle E-Business Suite database to a secondary (duplicate) instance. This enables read-intensive, custom reports to be run without using resources on the primary Oracle E-Business Suite database. So as of now only selected tables are replicated from the primary Oracle E-Business Suite database to a secondary (duplicate) instance using Oracle GoldenGate for operational reporting only.

Please Note Important: It is highly recommended that organizations planning to implement Oracle GoldenGate to achieve Operational Reporting using Oracle E-Business as a source, have technical specialists with prior training and experience using Oracle GoldenGate. Organizations lacking sufficient skills within the team, should contact Oracle Consulting Services for assistance before attempting this type of solution.

Supported User Data Tables and limitations:
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a.Approximately 21000 Oracle E-Business Suite tables are supported by Oracle GoldenGate.
b.Tables without a primary key or unique index are fully supported by Oracle GoldenGate, but could add extra volume to redo log generation as all columns must be supplementally logged.
c.Fewer than twenty Oracle E-Business Suite tables are not supported by Oracle GoldenGate; this is because they contain data types ANYDATA and UROWID.

Current restrictions mean that Oracle GoldenGate may not always capture 100 percent of changed data created by Oracle E-Business Suite. The issues range from data types not supported by Oracle GoldenGate 10.4, through to data issues such as ANYDATA or UROWID columns that may require addition of business logic to transform the data into a usable form on the target system.

Please refer to the KM Doc ID 1112325.1 for more information.

Question 2:
There is a feature called Syncfile in Goldengate. Can this be used for E-business suite file synching (binaries file synching to Disaster Recovery site) ?
Answer:
NO, Syncfile commands in OGG cannot be used with Oracle Database as it is only used with Nonstop Tandem Environments.
FYI, Syncfile utility is mainly used to duplicate entire files on a scheduled basis in NonStop systems.By default, Syncfile uses the NonStop FUP DUP utility to perform file duplication

Question 3:

3) So many people user Data Guard,  It seems GG can also do the same thing. It can read from the redologs and apply them. Should'nt we use GG instead of DataGuard. What are the pros and cons of both.
Answer:

Oracle Data Guard and Oracle Active Data Guard:
---------------------------------------------------------
Oracle Active Data Guard, which is built on the infrastructure of Oracle Data Guard, allows a physical standby database to be open read-only while changes are applied to it from the primary database. This enables read-only applications to utilize the physical standby with minimal latency between the data on the standby database and that on the primary database, even while processing very high transaction volumes at the primary database.

An Oracle Active Data Guard standby database is used for automatic repair of data corruptions detected by the primary database, transparent to the application. In the event of an unplanned outage on the primary database, high availability is maintained by quickly failing over to the standby database. An Active Data Guard standby database can also be used to off-load fast incremental backups from the primary database given that it is a block-for-block physical replica of the primary.

Oracle Active Data Guard enables read-only reporting on the physical standby with minimal latency between reporting and production data. Oracle Active Data Guard also allows backup operations to be off-loaded to the standby database using fast incremental backups. Oracle Active Data Guard provides the additional benefit of high availability and disaster protection by quickly failing over to the standby database in the event of a planned or an unplanned outage at the production site. Active Data Guard only supports Oracle Database Enterprise Edition.

Oracle Data Guard provides disaster recovery (DR) and data availability for the Oracle Database, enabling very fast failover to a standby database in the event of a failure in the primary database. Oracle Active Data Guard extends the physical standby database to be open for read-only traffic, and also for fast incremental backups. This allows
customers to better leverage their existing DR investment and increase the performance of the production database by offloading query and backup processing to (up to 30) physical standby databases.

Oracle Active Data Guard also provides transparent data protection by automatically repairing corrupted data blocks on the primary database using the valid data blocks from the physical standby database, and vice versa.
Oracle Data Guard and Oracle Active Data Guard are exclusively for Oracle to Oracle replication, where the database schemas are identical and the computing platforms have the similar architecture. Because replication is at the physical block level, and no data or schema transformations take place, this is the fastest replication possible. Oracle Data Guard with the Oracle Active Data Guard option continues to be the strategicdisaster recovery and data availability solution for Oracle databases.

Oracle GoldenGate:
--------------------------
Oracle GoldenGate delivers an enterprise-wide solution for heterogeneous real time data access and delivery needs. Oracle GoldenGate works across different databases, platforms and schemas, and supports active-active configurations. By reading database logs, Oracle GoldenGate avoids any impact to the source database and ensures reliable, transactionally consistent delivery of database transactions across wide area or local networks. With its flexible, modular architecture, Oracle GoldenGate solves a wide range of high availability challenges, including active-active deployments, multi-master deployments, data distribution for infrastructure cost reduction and high availability, and zero downtime migrations and upgrades. Oracle GoldenGate is the strategic replication solution for Oracle Database and for heterogeneous databases, with proven success in a wide range of demanding industries and mission critical use cases.

Oracle GoldenGate is a log-based, real-time change data capture (CDC) software platform that moves high volumes of transactional data between databases with very low latency, and allows logical data replication. A typical environment includes a capture, pump and delivery process.You can replicate all or a portion of your data, and you can filter or transform the data within any of these processes not only for heterogeneous environments but also different database schemas.Oracle GoldenGate is also an excellent product for minimizing downtime during planned maintenance, including application and database upgrades, in addition to platform migrations.

With GoldenGate for Oracle, you can replicate DML and DDL operations.You can move data between similar or dissimilar supported Oracle versions, or you can move data between an Oracle database and a database of another type. GoldenGate supports the filtering, mapping, and transformation of data.

GoldenGate supports both Oracle Database Standard Edition and Oracle Database Enterprise Edition. For replication involving a heterogeneous mix of Oracle and non-Oracle databases, GoldenGate should be the obvious choice.

Summary:
----------------
1.If your business requirement is a simple, high-performance, drop-in solution for disaster recovery (DR), data protection and high availability (HA) for the entire Oracle database, Oracle Active Data Guard should be the recommended solution.

***Disaster Recovery (DR) / Data Protection / High Availability (HA) - Use Active Data Guard

a.It is a high-performance, simple, drop-in solution for HA and DR.
b.It maximizes DR investment by utilizing physical standbys for queries and backups.
c.It works for all apps and data types, including packaged apps that can’t be changed.
d.It is fully integrated with all other Oracle database HA capabilities – e.g. RAC, Flashback, Client Failover, Automatic Block Repair, Lost Write Protection, etc.
e.It provides basic capabilities to reduce planned downtime for technology refresh, select migrations, and upgrades of Oracle Database software.

2.If your business requirement is to set up a data distribution / data synchronization solution through this Oracle-Oracle replication configuration, or a more flexible multi-master HA solution, Oracle GoldenGate should be the recommended solution.

***flexible HA, active-active, schema & platform changes, HA/DR for non-Oracle databases - Use Oracle GoldenGate

a.It supports heterogeneous platforms & databases, transformations, subset replication, active-active deployments, etc.
b.It supports a wide variety of minimal and zero downtime planned maintenance activities.

Note: Active-active configurations usually require data conflicts to be avoided or at least managed by the application, so active-active architecture for real-time replication is more suitable for custom applications. With respect to planned migrations, GoldenGate’s certification on Oracle Siebel CRM supports an active-active configuration to provide zero downtime upgrades and migrations.

3.If your business requirement is Information Distribution & Consolidation, Application Upgrades & Changes

***Use GoldenGate – supports heterogeneous platforms & databases, transformations, subset replication, active-active deployments, hub & spoke, multi-master, bi-directional configurations, etc.

4.Dual Use of both Oracle GoldenGate and Oracle Active Data Guard in your production environment:
Oracle GoldenGate and Oracle Active Data Guard when used together offer a unique data protection and information distribution solution not offered by any other product. Given the fact that they are licensed together, Oracle recommends that both solutions are deployed together whenever appropriate.
For example, a centralized global manufacturing database may be protected using an Active Data Guard physical standby, set up with Data Guard Fast-Start Fail-over with synchronous redo transport, ensuring zero data loss and integrated fail-over of applications in the event of an outage at the primary data center.

At the same time, using Oracle GoldenGate, it is possible to set up bi-directional replication from this central database to smaller regional databases supporting local manufacturing operations. These may be non-Oracle databases, and they could also be configured in a hardware and OS platform that is different from that of the central database. Enabling such a fully active, globally distributed and highly available configuration is one of the unique value propositions of implementing Oracle GoldenGate together with Oracle Active Data Guard.Oracle GoldenGate can also help upgrade customers on older database versions such as Oracle9i to Oracle Database 11g without impacting their operations, and after the upgrade those customers can start benefiting from Active Data Guard’s advanced HA capabilities.


You can more information on this at below link
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/goldengate/htdocs/statement-of-direction-gg.pdf

Question 5:

4) GG versus Oracle Advanced Replication.

Advanced replication supports various configurations of updateble-snapshot, multi-master and update anywhere replication whereas Oracle GoldenGate delivers an enterprise-wide solution for heterogeneous real time data access and delivery needs.

Oracle GoldenGate works across different databases, platforms and schemas, and supports active-active configurations. By reading database logs, Oracle GoldenGate avoids any impact to the source database and ensures reliable, transactionally consistent delivery of database transactions across wide area or local networks. With its flexible, modular architecture, Oracle GoldenGate solves a wide range of high availability challenges, including active-active deployments, multi-master deployments, data distribution for infrastructure cost reduction and high availability, and zero downtime migrations and upgrades. Oracle GoldenGate is the strategic replication solution for Oracle Database and for heterogeneous databases.

So ti is advisable to use Oracle GoldenGate as it supports replication to heterogeneous environments and avoids any impact to the source database.

For more information please refer to the technical documentation that can be found at:
a.GoldenGate documentation library - http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E15881_01/index.htm
b.You can download all the latest OGG documentation and Software from http://edelivery.oracle.com



Question 6:

1) Are we saying GG is mainly data replication solution and doesn’t offer any file synchronization ? I can see GG has many products in it.
Answer:
----------
OGG support file synchronization only in Nonstop systems but not in Oracle database environments.As it internally uses Nonstop tools like FUP DUP and TACL scripts to accomplish this function.
Currently file synchronization is not supported in open systems and Oracle database environments.

Question 7:

GG and DataGuard are licensed together .Can you shed some light on it.
Answer:
----------
The license for Oracle GoldenGate includes the ability to capture database transactions from Oracle Database and deliver database transactions to Oracle Database. It also includes a full use license for Oracle Active Data Guard, and a full use license for XStream. Note, the capture and deliver features of Oracle GoldenGate work with any edition of the Oracle Database, while Active Data Guard and XStream require Oracle Database Enterprise Edition.

More information can be found at below link
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E15881_01/doc.104/e15889.pdf

Question 8:

GG can help upgrading the database from 9i to 11g . How is that possible ? Can you elaborate bit more on that.
Answer:
----------
Please refer to the attached document for more information on the same.
Zero-Downtime Database Upgrades Using Oracle GoldenGate - Oracle_zerodowntime_database_upgrade.pdf -  



4) All the features mentioned above for GG have resemblance with Oracle Data Integrator as well . What is the difference ? Where we should pitch ODI and where to pitch GG ? Aren’t they very close to each other ?
Answer:
----------
Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition:
------------------------------------------
Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition delivers high-performance movement and transformation of heterogeneous data in batches and mini-batches for use in data warehousing, business intelligence, application integration, and service oriented architecture use cases. Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition utilizes heterogeneous databases to perform high speed complex data transformations and leverage existing resources. With its flexible, modular architecture and declarative design methodology, Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition helps companies reduce the total cost of ownership for data integration. In addition, Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition integrates with Oracle’s and third party data quality products.

Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition remains the strategic data integration product from Oracle for ETL, ELT, batch integration, mini-batch integration, and bulk transformation. The changed data capture functionality included with Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition is suitable for periodic, ongoing loads for a data warehouse.

Oracle GoldenGate:
------------------------------------------
As Oracle’s solution for enterprise-wide heterogeneous real time data access and delivery needs, Oracle GoldenGate complements Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition to provide the real time data integration required for real time business intelligence. By reading transaction logs, Oracle GoldenGate imposes minimal impact on transactional systems and maintains transactional integrity across databases. Oracle
GoldenGate moves data with very low latencies in the most demanding operational and business intelligence environments. Oracle GoldenGate is Oracle’s strategic solution for real time data integration. It enables non-invasive operational reporting and other types of query offloading by maintaining a real-time replica that can be on a different database platform and lower cost hardware. In combination with Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition for transformation, Oracle GoldenGate makes real time business intelligence possible, allowing companies to combine insight about the current state with historical context.

Recommended Data Integration Use Cases:
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1. Typical Data Warehouse Loading & SOA Use Cases: Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition For typical batch-oriented data warehousing, Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition (ODI-EE) is the recommended solution. ODI-EE extracts, loads, and transforms data for initial loads and incremental batch updates with set-based execution of complex transformations. It can also work with comprehensive data quality products such as
Oracle Data Quality. ODI-EE is also the solution for bulk transformations in a SOA.

2. Data Synchronization, Query Offloading: Oracle GoldenGate Oracle GoldenGate is recommended for data synchronization use cases in which two systems are kept in sync bi-directionally and for use cases of moving database transactions from more expensive systems to less expensive, then running BI tools and other queries against the lower cost replica to reduce the load and cost on mission critical transactional systems.

3. Combining Oracle GoldenGate and Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition It is a powerful combination to use Oracle GoldenGate and Oracle Data Integrator together for real time business intelligence. Oracle GoldenGate captures database transactions from OLTP sources and propagates them in real time to a permanent staging area in an enterprise data warehouse, Then, ODI picks up the changes from the permanent staging area and performs transformation within the database to load into the optimized data warehouse schema. By combining information about the current business
state with historical analysis and context, companies can drive informed business decisions throughout the day.

There is no other solution available in the market that offers real time data integration and transformation within heterogeneous databases to enable real time business intelligence without additional server investment.

Product Integration Plans:Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition and Oracle GoldenGate will continue as separate products that offer additional advantages when used together. Product integration plans include, for example, allowing Oracle GoldenGate to move data from source to target in real time and directly populate the change data capture tables of Oracle Data Integrator so it can perform streamlined complex transformations into the
warehouse schema. This will further reduce the end-to-end latency for real time data warehousing.
With its next generation data integration platform, Oracle envisions even greater synergies between bulk data movement and transformation and real time data movement. Existing customers will be carried forward to the next generation data integration platform from any of Oracle’s existing data integration products, including Oracle GoldenGate.

You can have more information on this at below link
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/goldengate/htdocs/statement-of-direction-gg.pdf

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