Actifio Data Virtualization
An Actifio appliance is a highly scalable copy data management platform that virtualizes application data to improve the
resiliency, agility, and cloud mobility of your business. It works by virtualizing data in much the same way other
technologies have virtualized servers and networks. This enables you to capture data from production systems,
manage it in the most efficient way possible, and use virtual or physical copies of the data whenever and wherever
they are needed.
Application data is captured at the block level, in application native format, according to a specified SLA. A golden copy
of that data is created and stored once, and is then updated incrementally with only the changed blocks of data in an
“incremental forever” model. Unlimited virtual copies of the data can be made available instantly for use, without
proliferating physical copies and taking up additional storage infrastructure.
The Actifio Connector
The Actifio Connector is used to capture selected Oracle databases. The Actifio Connector is a small-footprint,
lightweight service that can be installed on either virtual or physical servers. The Actifio Connector makes use of
Oracle RMAN for capture and access operations.
Specifically, the Actifio Connector:
- Discovers Oracle databases.
- Uses RMAN image copy and incremental merge API to capture data at block level in incremental forever
fashion. - Identifies changes to database data for Actifio’s incremental forever capture strategy.
- Captures and manages archivelog:
o Captures Oracle database(s) and logs with one SLA.
o Purges Oracle database archivelog.
o Rolls forward Oracle database archivelog for point-in-time recovery when accessing virtual copies.
Oracle Database Block Change Tracking (BCT) - Oracle tracking enables fast database backups by identifying which blocks have changed. Only changed blocks are
- included in the backup operation.
- Actifio incremental-forever supports both databases running with BCT enabled and databases running with
BCT disabled. - Change Block Tracking is enabled at database level.
- Oracle records the changed blocks in each data file in a tracking file (small binary file stored in the database
area). - With tracking enabled, RMAN uses the BCT file to get the changed blocks for incremental backup.
- RMAN scans each block in a data file for all data files in the database during incremental backup when
Change Block Tracking on the database is not enabled. - With BCT not enabled the incremental backup time will increase.