4 GoldenGate Use Cases You Didn’t Know About

Oracle GoldenGate is a powerful, mature solution for real-time data integration and replication of heterogeneous data sources—but do you know about all the different ways that you can apply these capabilities?

 
Because GoldenGate is source- and target-agnostic, it can be used to replicate data between many different systems, including Oracle and non-Oracle databases, data reservoirs, files, and unstructured data. This makes GoldenGate an incredibly flexible, versatile tool.

There are plenty of obvious GoldenGate use cases, such as database migration and data consolidation to OLAP databases and big data ecosystems. Yet with so many potential use cases for GoldenGate, it’s entirely possible that you’ve been overlooking some of the lesser-known ones.

In this post, we’ll suggest a few ways to get the most from your GoldenGate deployment.

1. Dynamic rollback

Being able to quickly restore databases from backup is an important part of disaster recovery and business continuity. The larger your database is, however, the longer it will take to restore—potentially several hours or more. But this prolonged downtime is simply unacceptable for data-driven businesses that need constant access to information.

GoldenGate includes a feature called “dynamic rollback” that can save you hours or days of wasted productivity. If you mistakenly perform a transaction, or if certain data is corrupted or lost, you can selectively roll back only the affected parts of the database. GoldenGate captures “before” and “after” database images when making changes, saving you the need to go through the full recovery process.

2. Test database maintenance

The development process often requires multiple test database environments, for purposes such as system testing and user acceptance testing. Just like problems with data errors or corruption, GoldenGate’s dynamic rollback functionality is highly useful to help you maintain large test databases.

Once a round of tests is complete, DBAs can roll back any changes to the test database, returning it to its original state. Quick, efficient maintenance on test database environments is especially important for agile and iterative application development. By resetting these databases without excessive downtime, you get more time to run tests and less time waiting around.

3. Upgrades and patches

Database upgrades and patches are a necessary evil for DBAs: they offer new features and bug fixes, but they also require extensive downtime and are prone to errors and complications. Yet what if you could use GoldenGate to dramatically shorten the maintenance window for database updates?

GoldenGate can eliminate, or at least significantly decrease, the downtime required to update your databases. It also reduces the risk of unexpected downtime or disaster. If you encounter an issue, you can immediately switch to a failover system that contains a backup of the required data, ensuring that your business can handle any bumps in the road.

4. Query offloading

Slow and/or poorly formulated queries are one of the most common sources of database performance issues. Running database queries on production systems can be especially problematic, since they can be demanding in terms of CPU cost and disk I/O operations.

The good news is that GoldenGate can help deal with this issue by offloading database queries from production to real-time replicas. This replica database is used to handle intensive queries that would otherwise occupy valuable resources, clogging up your data pipelines. With GoldenGate, query offloading is easy: you simply need to replicate data from the source production database to the target replica database.

Conclusion

Oracle GoldenGate is a flexible, multi-use data integration and replication platform that should be an essential part of any organization’s data pipeline. Partnering with a skilled, experienced Oracle partner like Datavail can help you get the most from your use of GoldenGate. Our services include:

• Real-time data integration with both Oracle and non-Oracle databases.
• Data replication in heterogeneous environments
• Data capture and transformations
• Enhanced security and encryption
• 24×7 IT managed services

 
Dynamic rollback, test database maintenance, upgrades and patches, and query offloading are some of the more overlooked Oracle GoldenGate use cases—and this blog post has only scratched the surface. Want to learn more about all the ways to maximize your use of GoldenGate? Download our white paper “Top 10 Most Valuable GoldenGate Use Case Scenarios” to learn how our clients have successfully leveraged GoldenGate to their benefit, or get in touch with us for a chat about your business needs and objectives.