NetApp Tested Solutions With Oracle

NetApp introduced several new offerings to broaden its portfolio of solutions that have been engineered, tested, and integrated with Oracle Applications, Oracle Databases, and Oracle Fusion Middleware. Today’s news extends the breadth and depth of NetApp storage solutions with Oracle.

In support of NetApp’s new development and test solutions for heterogeneous SAN environments, NetApp and Oracle teamed to provide a tested reference architecture to enable customers to accelerate time to market for Oracle applications.

Traditional competitive approaches for Oracle application development require customers to create full volume clones or copies of production data that require 100% storage capacity overhead. NetApp’s solution allows Oracle customers to create copies of Oracle Databases in minutes with minimal incremental storage space to speed test cycles and deployment times. Together, NetApp and Oracle are helping customers respond to changing business needs faster than ever before, minimize disruptions to their production environment, and reduce the infrastructure and administrative costs associated with development and test processes.

To help customers deploy this solution, NetApp and Oracle developed the Oracle Database Heterogeneous Development and Test Solution Reference Architecture, which articulates how best to set up an Oracle environment with both NetApp and third-party storage systems for use in development and testing environments. This technical document provides a blueprint for successfully deploying a NetApp development and testing solution with Oracle.

Customers who deploy NetApp development and test solutions for Oracle can take advantage of the following features and capabilities:

• NetApp FlexClone—Create database copies in minutes without requiring 100% additional storage capacity and help accelerate the time to market for new applications and improve product quality.
• NetApp SnapManager for Oracle—Leverage a graphical user interface to ease the process of creating full copies of production database clones.
• NetApp SnapMirror for Open Systems—Formerly known as ReplicatorX, SnapMirror for Open Systems enables customers to replicate data from third-party storage to NetApp storage across any distance with low impact on production, as well as combine disaster recovery and development and testing on a single infrastructure for better ROI.
• NetApp FlexVol—This product enables thin provisioning of storage used for application development and testing.
• NetApp SANscreen Plugin for Oracle Enterprise Manager—Provides real-time visibility into storage services delivered to databases; fast, automated troubleshooting; insight into storage provisioning processes; and simplified capacity planning.
• Oracle Real Application Testing—Easily leverage resources at your disaster recovery site for testing and leverage NetApp technologies such as Snapshot, SnapMirror, and FlexClone to automate the development and testing process.
• Oracle Data Guard—Oracle’s database-integrated solution for comprehensive disaster recovery and data protection allows efficient replication of Oracle data from production to active development and test environments while keeping them transactionally consistent.

“Development and testing environments create an enormous amount of data proliferation that customers are desperately trying to address,” said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Solutions Marketing at NetApp. “Traditional cloning approaches require 100% additional storage capacity, drive costs up, and wreak havoc on application deployment schedules. With Oracle, we’re providing customers an integrated solution to allow them to reduce their storage capacity requirements and help development, test, and quality assurance teams mitigate risk during the product design lifecycle and, ultimately, speed time to market to gain a competitive edge.”

NetApp Offers Unparalleled Support for Oracle Stack
In addition, NetApp introduced two new solutions for Oracle Database and Oracle Fusion Middleware offerings:

• NetApp ILM, Archive, and Compliance Solution—NetApp’s unified storage architecture greatly simplifies the deployment and ongoing management of tiered storage for Oracle information lifecycle management (ILM) to provide customers with the most complete ILM, archive, and compliance solution. Competitive offerings require the deployment of different classes of storage with different operating systems, introducing management complexity and impeding compliance support. With NetApp, tiered storage that combines high-performance (FC) and lower-cost (SATA) drives can be implemented using a single platform. NetApp has developed an API that integrates with Oracle Database to enable customers to leverage Oracle ILM Assistant to migrate Oracle data to different tiers of NetApp storage. To help meet governance and compliance requirements, NetApp SnapLock integrates with the Oracle ILM Assistant to easily create WORM volumes. With NetApp and Oracle, users can seamlessly create and move data between storage tiers while adhering to strict compliance policies.
• NetApp Disaster Recovery Solution for Oracle Fusion Middleware—NetApp enables customers to deploy a cost-effective disaster recovery solution to protect not only their mission-critical applications, but also their daily business applications. Together, NetApp and Oracle provide customers with a blueprint for architecting a highly available disaster recovery solution for applications that run on Oracle Fusion Middleware.

“Prior to FlexClone, our developers waited days to receive a single database/application environment copy,” said Huy Ly, senior director, Server Operations–Development Infrastructure, Oracle. “Given that we have thousands of developers all over the world, not only was the lag time unacceptable, we couldn’t afford the amount of storage that these copies required. With NetApp FlexClone, developers get their own copies in a matter of hours with minimal incremental storage. As a result, we have dramatically improved our time to deploy new Oracle applications.”

“NetApp solutions add value to all layers of the Oracle stack,” said Phil Brotherton, vice president and general manager, Enterprise Applications Business Unit, NetApp. “We continue to collaborate with Oracle in developing solutions that enable customers to reduce cost and complexity in their data centers. With NetApp, our joint customers have the most complete solutions for Oracle databases, middleware, and applications.”

All products are available immediately.

For more information about NetApp application development and test solutions for Oracle