Methods of Reducing EBS Storage Footprint

The Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) storage footprint is the amount of storage used by companies to fulfill their business needs through the maintenance of an EBS implementation. The following are a snapshot of the methods you can use to reduce EBS storage footprint. More comprehensive coverage of this topic can be found by downloading our white paper, Reducing EBS Storage Footprint.

Archiving

Data archiving is the process of shifting passive data that must be retained for regulatory compliance in addition to data that is still important to the organization for long-term retention on a separate storage device. The archived data gets classified in a timely manner and then shifted off from the expensive primary storage and onto the technology associated with the lower management costs and less power consumption.

Data archives have search capabilities. Files and parts of files get indexed so they can easily be found and retrieved. Archiving has a great impact on reduction of data storage footprint for online and primary storage, including improvement in performance and increased storage capacity.

Deduplication

Deduplication entails locating and removing duplicate pieces of stored data in different data sets. It is accomplished by applying a deduplication algorithm to a set of data. The deduplication algorithm finds duplicate data blocks within data files, then stores a single copy of each data block and saves a track of the entire reference to each of those data blocks.

Deduplication enables data to be backed up to more expensive disk storage, which makes for a much quicker recovery after unexpected data loss. A reduction of 80% to 90 % on a typical data footprint can be attained via deduplication of backup data alone.

Compression

Compression is the process of locating and removing replicated array of bytes. It works well with email, databases, and files to help trim down your data footprint. It is implemented in hardware and software to decrease the size of data and create a corresponding reduction in network bandwidth or storage capacity.

Probably the most well-known data reduction technology, compression, helps you move and store more data effectively and provides immediate and transparent relief not only for backup and archiving, but also for primary storage. This method is commonly used when the main focus is on speed, performance, and transfer rates.

Information lifecycle management (ILF)

Information lifecycle management (ILM) is a comprehensive approach to managing the flow of an information system’s data and correlated metadata. It consists of practices, processes, policies, and tools used to align the business value of information with the most suitable and cost-effective IT setup, from inception of information through its final disposition.

Application of the ILM solution enables IT organizations to copy and/or move data that is valued less and is accessed not as frequently from production systems to second-line or third-line storage in order to cut costs and increase performance — while still satisfying all the requirements for data security, retention and access. ILM management is an ideal solution for IT organizations seeking to manage growing data volumes in their Oracle E-Business Suite applications.

Such factors as the need for organizations to save data for long periods of time in order to comply with regulations and provisioning of additional data copies of these environments for non-production use have necessitated the need to reduce the EBS storage footprint.

This in turn has led to the development of techniques to store a given set of data in less storage space. By employing data footprint reduction techniques, an organization can cut down storage costs, increase performance of the backup, and restore the process necessary to guard vital data in Oracle E-Business Suite.

If you need assistance in reducing your EBS Storage Footprint, Datavail can help you do that seamlessly. Datavail’s Oracle E-Business Suite database administrators have substantial experience in R12, including one of the largest implementations in the world. We provide an industry-leading team of Oracle EBS database administrators to assist customers with all their DBA needs. Our expert Oracle E-Business DBA team has supported a wide range of large and small operations throughout their careers, allowing them to share and apply their unique experience and knowledge across Datavail’s entire client base.