Optimizing Oracle Applications: GoldenGate

Today’s companies are handling more data than ever before: 163 terabytes on average, at last count. In order to make the best use of all this information, it can’t simply remain locked away in a single database, especially as your enterprise grows in size. Instead, multiple Oracle and non-Oracle databases in different locations may need to have access to the same information at the same time.

Enter Oracle GoldenGate and all the advantages and performance issues that come with using it.

Benefits of GoldenGate

Oracle’s GoldenGate software is intended to facilitate the integration and replication of enterprise data. Like its namesake in San Francisco, GoldenGate acts as a “bridge” spanning different databases and IT environments. Information can easily move between multiple platforms in the real-time, fast-paced way that modern businesses require.

Common Issues with GoldenGate

While most companies find that GoldenGate is tremendously useful, the software also has its fair share of performance issues and pain points (so much that we wrote an entire white paper about them: “Top 9 Challenges of GoldenGate – and How to Solve Them”).

ETL operations and active-active replications are two examples of operations under GoldenGate that are both challenging and slow. In addition, the IT team needs to carefully handle batch jobs or risk serious problems with delays and lags.

GoldenGate: Case Study

While GoldenGate performance issues are both persistent and annoying, they are by no means insurmountable. Datavail has helped several clients optimize GoldenGate with incredible results.

Use Case: ETL and User Transactions

The Problem

The client, a Fortune 500 fast food chain, wanted to use the most recent data from an OLTP/EBS environment for reporting tools such as OBI, without affecting OLTP users on the source system. However, they could not run ETL during business hours, which impacted user transactions. Of course, ETL executed off business hours provided data, but it became 24 hours old by the time it reached the reporting/OBI server. The team could not alter the source OLTP/EBS system for performance improvement of ETL jobs.

In addition, Oracle EBS generated high transactions on replicated tables, which were more than 50 million in short time during month end activity. As a result, large transactions on EBS were causing GoldenGate to replicate data with a lag of several hours.

The Solution

Datavail’s skilled GoldenGate and EBS team was brought in to strengthen the GoldenGate solution architecture. Our team captured changes on specific tables from the EBS environment and replicated them to the staging server with minimum lag. In addition, we tuned the GoldenGate setup parameters and configuration on the source and staging server to reduce latency. We also executed incremental ETL on the staging database multiple times a day to keep the data in OBI updated.

The Results

• Daily OBI reports can now be executed on the most recent data captured from the EBS/OLTP system
• EBS data is available on the staging server in a few seconds
• With the improved setup, lag has reduced from eight hours to less than ten minutes during month end
• With the GoldenGate architecture improved, downtime has decreased
• Customer has now been using GoldenGate effectively with OBI for more than 50 months

Final Thoughts

As an Oracle Platinum Partner, Datavail is capable of providing comprehensive, end-to-end GoldenGate services: real-time integration of Oracle and non-Oracle databases, automated memory management, replicating data in heterogeneous environments, and more.