Delphix Server 3.0 Documentation

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The Delphix Server is a virtual database appliance that provides superior performance over physical databases for application development, disaster recovery, and data warehousing. This topic describes the basic functions of the Delphix Server and its underlying technology.


What is the Delphix Server?

The Delphix Server virtualizes database infrastructure to provide complete, fully functional databases that operate in a fraction of the space, with improved agility, manageability, and performance.

The Delphix Server is a self-contained operating environment and application that is provided as a Virtual Appliance.

What Does the Delphix Server Do?

The Delphix Server links to source physical databases via standard APIs and asks the source databases to send copies of their entire file and log blocks to it. The Delphix Server uses intelligent filtering and compression to reduce the copy of the source database down to as little as 25% of the original size. The copy of the source database stored in the Delphix Server, along with all incremental updates, is referred to as the dSource in Delphix terminology.

After the initial loading, the Delphix Server maintains synchronization with source databases based on policy - for example, once daily, or within seconds of the last transaction. Once linked, Delphix maintains a Timeflow of the source database - a rolling record of file and log changes retained by a policy (for example, "keep for two weeks.") From any time within that retention window, a virtual database (referred to in Delphix terminology as a VDB) can be instantly provisioned from the Delphix Server. VDBs are served from the shared storage footprint of the dSource database Timeflow, so no additional storage is required.

Multiple VDBs can be provisioned from any point in time in a Timeflow, down to the second. Once provisioned, a VDB is an independent, read-write database, and changes made to the VDB by users or applications are written to new, compressed blocks in Delphix storage. VDBs can be provisioned from other VDBs, and the data within VDBs refreshed from its parent VDB or dSource.