Re: Copying Large Amounts of Data From Prod to Dev

  • From: "Dennis Williams" <oracledba.williams@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: regdba@xxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 20:12:15 -0500

Peter,

Haven't had much luck with reducing the amount of data.
Too often it turned out there were problems with missing data, and the like.
For example, we saved space by not copying all the historical payroll data.
The upgrade testing failed to catch a data situation that wasn't represented
in our
data subset.

The more reliable methods I've used are things like recovering a backup.
This has a bonus of actually getting confidence in your backups.

Export/import offers many creative alternatives, but is only good for
smaller amounts
of data.

The big issue with reducing DBA time is often the negotiation.
One group wants the data refreshed, another group isn't ready.
Somebody creates or modifies database objects or data and your refresh wipes
them out.
So then they scream (to your manager) to never refresh the data unless you
check
with them first. Sometimes the DBA time savings is only refreshing on
demand.

Dennis Williams


On 6/18/07, Peter Barnett <regdba@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Thanks for the thoughts.  We are likely going to be
refreshing and rebuilding at least three
multi-terabyte databases every month for development.
Same for systems and integration testing.  Speed is
definitely an issue.

We would also like to reduce the number of DBA
resources required to do this.  That is what
originally drove the Symclone question.  Can we do
this with little, or no, DBA time?  There seems to be
agreement that it is slow.  Guess we need a 'Plan B'.



--- Matthew Zito <mzito@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> And actually, as I think about it, if you're just
> looking to move data
> from one place to another, the symclone stuff might
> be a bit of overkill
> for it - if you just want to move a chunk of data
> from one place to
> another, you could use a timefinder snapshot, which
> would reduce your
> disk usage, or if its done infrequently, you could
> use a standard BCV,
> which provides better performance than the symclone
> piece.
>
> Thanks,
> Matt
>
> --
> Matthew Zito
> Chief Scientist
> GridApp Systems
> P: 646-452-4090
> mzito@xxxxxxxxxxx
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
> Of Peter Barnett
> > Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 1:46 PM
> > To: Oracle-l
> > Subject: Copying Large Amounts of Data From Prod
> to Dev
> >
> > We are considering using EMC Symclone to copy data
> from
> > production to development databases.  Does anyone
> have any
> > experience with this product used in this way?
> Any 'gotchas'
> > or words of wisdom?
> >
> > Pete Barnett
> > Lead Database Administrator
> > The Regence Group
> > pnbarne@xxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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> >
> >
>


Pete Barnett
Lead Database Administrator
The Regence Group
pnbarne@xxxxxxxxxxx




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