Oracle Data Guard Services

Oracle Data Guard protects your database against planned and unplanned downtimes by creating physical and logical standby databases. In addition, Active Data Guard, an option of Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, allows you to simultaneously open a standby database read-only while also keeping it synchronized with production. This allows you to offload read-only resource workloads such as real-time query and reporting, applications web-based access, and database backups to the standby database to enhance and protect performance of the production database.

Arc DBA Consulting DBAs have been working with Oracle standby database since it was first released with Oracle Database 7.3 in 1996, and with Oracle Data Guard since it was introduced with Oracle 9i in 2001. We have presented white papers on Data Guard at Oracle OpenWorld and developed and taught proprietary Data Guard courses onsite to customers, usually as part of a Data Guard implementation. We can assist in the following ways with your Data Guard or Active Data Guard project:

• Help you evaluate whether (Active) Data Guard is the best technological solution for your requirements, with a cost/benefit analysis that factors in Oracle licensing considerations. For example, Oracle GoldenGate may be more appropriate instead of or in conjunction with (Active) Data Guard, particularly because Active Data Guard licensing is included with that for GoldenGate
• Introduce your team to Data Guard architecture and concepts, such as physical vs. logical standby, integration with RAC primary and standby databases, and selection of the most appropriate Data Guard protection mode
• Identify how your applications can best leverage Data Guard’s features, and recommend the best architecture and configuration to meet your requirements, including tuning the Oracle network configuration between production and standby sites and setting initialization parameters for optimal standby performance and protection
• Install and configure the Data Guard environment using Oracle best practices and optimize Data Guard configuration settings for your requirements
• Support testing of your applications with Data Guard including switchover, failover, Data Guard Broker options, and synchronization lag tuning between production and standby databases
• Advise how and what normal operating procedures should be modified to encompass Data Guard, such as:
  • To configure RMAN backups of the standby database in lieu of or in addition to production database backups
  • To set up OEM monitoring of Data Guard processes, such as the synchronization lag and any custom OEM Metric Extensions needed for your particular application
• Document and walk through Data Guard installation, configuration, and administration procedures with your IT team