Deploying Oracle Maximum

Availability Architecture with

Exadata Database Machine

July 14, 2020

Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates
Confidential: Public Document
PURPOSE STATEMENT
This document provides an overview of the high availability and disaster recovery
features of the Oracle Database running on the Oracle Exadata Database Machine in
the context of Oracle’s Maximum Availability Architecture reference tiers. It is
intended solely to help assess the business and technical benefits of adapting and
configuring applications and databases to best meet Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) goals via high availablity and data protection
solutions and best practices.
The intended audience is anyone responsible for the maintenance and lifecycle of
applications (ranging from critical to development and test systems) that utilize the
Oracle Database as part of the architecture. While database administration
knowledge is useful in the understanding of some of the deeper concepts, the
majority of this document can be read by anyone that has an understanding of basic
software and database operations as well as high availability and disaster recovery
architecture.

DISCLAIMER
This document in any form, software or printed matter, contains proprietary
information that is the exclusive property of Oracle. Your access to and use of this
confidential material is subject to the terms and conditions of your Oracle software
license and service agreement, which has been executed and with which you agree to
comply. This document and information contained herein may not be disclosed,
copied, reproduced or distributed to anyone outside Oracle without prior written
consent of Oracle. This document is not part of your license agreement nor can it be
incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or
affiliates.
This document is for informational purposes only and is intended solely to assist you
in planning for the implementation and upgrade of the product features described. It
is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be
relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of
any features or functionality described in this document remains at the sole
discretion of Oracle.
Due to the nature of the product architecture, it may not be possible to safely include
all features described in this document without risking significant destabilization of
the code.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Purpose Statement 1
Disclaimer 1
Overview 3
Exadata MAA Reference Architectures 3
HA Benefits Inherent to Exadata 5
Hardware Components 5
Redundant database servers 5
Redundant storage 6
Redundant connectivity 6
Redundant power supply 7
Software Components: 7
Firmware and Operating System 7
Database Server Tier 7
Storage Tier 7
High Performance 7
Additional Exadata HA Features and Benefits 7

Post Deployment – Exadata MAA Configuration 16

Operational Best Practices for Exadata MAA 16
Importance of a Test Environment 17

Conclusion 18
Appendix 1: Exadata MAA Outage and Solution Matrix 19
Unplanned Outages 19

Appendix: New High Availability Features in Oracle Database 19c Error! Bookmark
not defined.

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OVERVIEW
The integration of Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture (Oracle MAA) operational and configuration best practices
with Oracle Exadata Database Machine (Exadata MAA) provides the most comprehensive high availability solution for
the Oracle Database on-premise or in the cloud.

Exadata Database Machine, Exadata Cloud at Customer (ExaCC) and Exadata Cloud Service (ExaCS) is a mature,
integrated system of software, servers, storage and networking, all pre-configured according to Oracle MAA best
practices to provide the highest database and application availability and performance. Mission critical applications in all
industries and across both public and private sectors rely upon Exadata MAA. Every Exadata system – integrated
hardware and software - has gone through extensive availability testing both internal to Oracle and by mission critical
customers worldwide. The lessons learned from the experiences of this global community are channeled back into
further enhancements that benefit every Exadata deployment and every Exadata customer.

This paper is intended for a technical audience: database, system and storage administrators and enterprise architects,
to provide insight into Exadata MAA best practices for rapid deployment and efficient operation of Exadata Database
Machine. The paper is divided into four main areas:

» Exadata MAA Architecture

» Inherent Exadata HA Benefits
» Post Deployment: Exadata MAA Configuration
» Operational Best Practices for Exadata MAA

Exadata MAA best practices documented in this white paper are complemented by the following:

» My Oracle Support Note 757552.1 is frequently updated with input directly from Oracle development to provide
customers the latest information gained from continuous MAA validation testing and production deployments.
» Exadata healthcheck (exachk) and its associated Oracle Exadata Assessment Report and MAA score card. This tool
is updated quarterly and is leveraged to provide a complete holistic review of your Exadata hardware, software and
configuration. Refer to My Oracle Support Note 1070954.1.
» Additional MAA best practice papers that provide a deeper-dive into specific technical aspects of a particular area or
topic published at www.oracle.com/goto/maa.

EXADATA MAA REFERENCE ARCHITECTURES

Exadata is the best MAA database platform for all Oracle databases addressing all unplanned outages and planned maintenance
activities. Exadata is a pre-optimized, pre-configured, integrated system of software, servers, and storage that comes ready-built to
implement Exadata MAA. Refer to Oracle Exadata Database Machine: Maximum Availability Architecture Presentation and Oracle

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Cloud: Maximum Availability Architecture Presentation that provide blueprints that align with a range of availability and data protection
requirements for Exadata on-premise and Exadata cloud customers.

For real world examples of how Exadata achieves end-to-end application availability and near zero brownout for various hardware and
software outages, view the failure testing demonstrated in this Exadata MAA technical video1 or refer to our many Exadata MAA
customer case studies at https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/ha-casestudies.html.

Figure 1. Basic Oracle Exadata Database Machine Configuration

Exadata MAA architecture “Gold Reference Architecture” consists of the following major building blocks:

» A production Exadata system (primary). The production system may consist of one Exadata elastic configuration or one or more
interconnected Exadata Database Machines as needed to address performance and scale-out requirements for data warehouse,
OLTP, or consolidated database environments.
» A standby Exadata system that is a replica of the primary. Oracle Data Guard is used to maintain synchronized standby databases
that are exact, physical replicas of production databases hosted on the primary system. This provides optimal data protection and
high availability if an unplanned outage makes the primary system unavailable. A standby Exadata system is most often located in a
different data center or geography to provide disaster recovery (DR) by isolating the standby from primary site failures. Configuring
the standby system with identical capacity as the primary also guarantees that performance service-level agreements can be met
after a switchover or failover operation. For many Active Data Guard benefits, refer to Oracle Data Guard section in High Availability
Overview documentation.

Note that Data Guard is able to support up to 30 standby databases in a single configuration. An increasing number of customers use
this flexibility to deploy both a local Data Guard standby for HA and a remote Data Guard standby for DR. A local Data Guard standby
database complements the internal HA features Exadata by providing an additional layer of HA should unexpected events or human
error make the production database unavailable even though the primary site is still operational. Low network latency enables
synchronous replication to a local standby resulting in zero data loss if a failover is required and fast redirection of application clients to
the new primary database

» A development/test Exadata system that is independent of the primary and standby Exadata systems. This system will host a
number of development/test databases used to support production applications. The test system may even have its own standby
system to create a test configuration that is a complete mirror of production. Ideally the test system is configured similar to the
production system to enable:

1 http://vimeo.com/esgmedia/exadata-maa-tests

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 » Use of a workload framework (e.g. Real Application Testing) that can mimic the production workload.
» Validation of changes in the test environment, including evaluating the impact of the change and the fallback procedure, before
introducing any change to the production environment.
» Validation of operational and recovery best practices.
Exadata also supports space-efficient database snapshots that can be used to create test and development environments.
Some users will try to reduce cost by consolidating these activities on their standby Exadata system. This is a business decision with
trade-offs around cost, operational simplicity and flexibility. In the case where the standby Exadata is also used to host other
development and test databases, additional measures may be required at failover time to conserve system resources for production
needs. For example, non-critical test and development activities may have to be deferred until failed system is repaired and back in
production.

HA BENEFITS INHERENT TO EXADATA

Exadata is engineered and preconfigured to enable and achieve end-to-end application and database availability with every hardware
fault such FANs, PDUs, batteries, switch, disk, flash, database server, motherboards, and DIMMs. Extensive engineering and
integration testing validates every aspect of the system, including hundreds of integrated HA tests performed on a daily basis. The HA
characteristics inherent in Exadata are described in the following sections.

Hardware Components
The following hardware and component redundancy is common to all models of Exadata: X8M, X8, X7, X6, X5, X4, X3, X2 and future
Exadata generations.

Redundant database servers

Exadata arrives at a customer site with multiple preconfigured industry-standard Oracle Database servers running Oracle RAC and your
select Oracle database release such as Oracle Database 19c Release. Oracle engineering and testing teams ensure the firmware,
software, and hardware configuration is tuned and pre-configured to provide high availability and scalability. Database servers are
clustered, and they communicate with each server using the high bandwidth, low latency Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA)
Network fabric. With this configuration, applications can tolerate a database server or Oracle RAC instance failure with minimal impact.

Traditionally a typical database node eviction caused by a database node failure will result in waiting on CSS misscount (defaulted to 30
or 60 seconds in most systems) before even declaring a database node has failed. During that time the entire cluster freezes and
there’s an application blackout. Exadata’s unique Instant Failure Detection mechanism an ultra fast and safe node eviction to reduce
brownout to 2 seconds or less.

In the test results shown in Figure 2 there was just two seconds of application brownout because of the Instant Failure Detection feature
On non-Exadata systems, customers will observer 30 or 60 seconds of application brownouts.

Furthermore, with Exadata high bandwidth and low latency pmem cache and write back flash cache, customers can tune database
initialization parameter FAST_START_MTTR_TARGET more aggressively reducing application brownout even further for instance and
node failures overall. For any database parameter changes, it is still recommended to evaluate the performance impact on comparable
test system prior to making production change.

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Figure 2: Database Node Power Failure

Redundant storage
Exadata storage components – database server disk drives, Exadata Storage Server disk drives, Exadata Storage Server Flash, M.2
drives, Exadata Persistent Memory Modules and Oracle Exadata Storage Servers (Exadata cell) are all redundant. Exadata Storage
Servers are managed with ASM and configured to tolerate hard disk, flash disk, flash card, and complete storage server failures.
Exadata Storage Servers are network-accessible storage devices with Oracle Exadata Storage Server Software pre-installed. Database
data blocks and metadata are mirrored across cells to ensure that the failure of any component in an Exadata cell, or the whole cell,
does not result in loss of data or availability. M.2 drives, flash drives, and hard disk drives are hot pluggable.

Exadata storage hardware and software have been engineered for the lowest application brownout for storage failures and provide
extensive data protection with Exadata HARD, Exadata disk scrubbing, and ASM scrubbing. Compared to other traditional storage
failures on other platforms, Exadata’s application impact for disk, flash or storage server failure is significantly lower. For example,
Exadata storage server failure can have less than 1 second application blackout and brownout versus seconds and minutes with other
storage running Oracle databases and applications.

Figure 3. Storage Failure

Redundant connectivity
Redundant RDMA network fabric adapters and redundant RDMA network fabric switches are pre-configured. Configuring network
redundancy for client access to database servers using Linux channel bonding is recommended and can be done at deployment time.

For network failures within an Exadata system, the observed application brownout typically ranges from zero to single digit seconds.

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Redundant power supply
Exadata has redundant power distribution units (PDUs) and power supply units (PSUs) for high availability. The PDUs accept separate
power sources and provide a redundant power supply to PSUs in:

» Oracle Database nodes

» Exadata Storage Cells
» InfiniBand switches
» Cisco network switch
Power supply units for Oracle Database nodes, Exadata Storage Cells, InfiniBand and Cisco switches are all hot swappable.

Software Components:
The following are standard Oracle software components explicitly optimized and validated for Exadata Database Machine.

Firmware and Operating System

All database and Exadata storage servers are packaged with validated firmware and operating system software preinstalled.

Database Server Tier

Grid Infrastructure (Oracle Clusterware and ASM) and Oracle RAC software are installed and patched to recommended software
version at deployment, enabling applications to tolerate and react to instance and node failures automatically with zero to near-zero
application brownout. As described in Appendix 1, all Grid Infrastructure patches and most database patches can be applied in rolling
fashion.

Storage Tier
» Tolerating hard disk, flash disk, flash card and Exadata cell failures
» Applying software changes in a rolling manner
» Exadata storage cells include Oracle Hardware Assisted Resilient Data (HARD) to provide a unique level of validation for Oracle
block data structures such as data block address, checksum and magic numbers prior to allowing a write to physical disks. HARD
validation with Exadata is automatic (setting DB_BLOCK_CHECKSUM is required to enable checksum validation). The HARD
checks transparently handle all cases including ASM disk rebalance operations and disk failures.

High Performance
Oracle Development teams who focus on high performance for OLTP and Data Warehouse applications have optimized the
configuration defaults set for Exadata. In some cases, there will be different default settings for different generations of Exadata
systems. These settings are the result of extensive performance testing with various workloads, both in Oracle labs and in production
deployments.

Additional Exadata HA Features and Benefits

Refer to Table 1 for an overview of Exadata specific HA features and benefits. For a more detailed description of these capabilities and
complete list of features, please refer to Exadata documentation such as Oracle Exadata Database Machine System Overview,
Exadata Machine Maintenance Guide and Exadata Storage Server Software User’s Guide.

TABLE 1: HA FEATURES AND BENEFITS

AREA FEATURE HA BENFITS DEPENDENTCIES

REDUCED HA Fast node detection Reduced node failure detection from as many as 60 seconds to just 2 Integrated with X8M with Exadata
BROWNOUT and failover or seconds or less. 19.3
Instant Failure Grid Infrastructure 12.1.0.2 BP7
Detection and higher

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Instant failure detection is a unique technology that works

transparently and enables incredible availability for OLTP applications.

Automatic detection Automatic detection and rebalance. Continual improvements in each

of Exadata storage Application impact from 1 to 2 seconds delay Exadata software release.
failures with low
application impact

Also renamed as
Instant Failure
Detection

Automatic detection Automatic detection and failover Continual improvements in each

of Exadata network Application impact from 0 to 5 seconds delay Exadata software release
failures with low
application impact

Zero Blackout for Optimized DB notification when a storage restart has to occur to Grid Infrastructure 12c and
Exadata Storage ensure zero application blacklout. higher.
Server Restarts and Exadata 12.1 and higher
Exadata Storage
Software Updates

Reduce brownout for With Exadata high bandwidth and low latency pmem cache and write Continual improvements in each
instance failures back flash cache, customers can tune database initialization Exadata database software
parameter, FAST_START_MTTR_TARGET, more aggressively release
without possible impact to the application reducing application
brownout even further for instance and node failures.

Full high redundancy Oracle voting files can be placed in a high redundancy disk group with Exadata 12.1.2.3.0 and higher
advantages for less than 5 storage server enabling all the data protection and
Oracle files and redundancy benefits for both Oracle database and Oracle cluster.
Oracle Clusterware This will be done automatically through Oracle Exadata Deployment if
voting files with 3 or you chose to create a high redundancy disk group.
4 storage cells

AD/ZONE Stretched Cluster With Oracle 12.2 Extended Clusters on Exadata, you can expand and Exadata 12.2.1.1.0 and higher
FAILURE compliment HA benefits by providing availability for a localized site
failure. This is particularly beneficial when there are isolated sites or
availability domains (sometimes referred to as “fire cells” with
independent power, cooling and resources) within a data center or
between two metro data centers. With a properly configured Extended
Cluster on Exadata, applications and databases can tolerate a
complete site failure plus an additional Exadata storage cell or
Exadata database server failure

DATA Automatic Hard Disk Automatically inspects and repairs hard disks periodically when hard Database and GI 11.2. and 12c
PROTECTION Scrub and Repair disks are idle. If bad sectors are detected on a hard disk, then Exadata 11.2.3.3 and higher

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Exadata automatically sends a request to ASM to repair the bad

sectors by reading the data from another mirror copy. By default, the
hard disk scrub runs every two weeks.

With Adaptive Scrubbing the frequency of scrubbing a disk may

Exadata 12.1.2.3.0 or higher
change automatically if bad sectors are discovered. If a bad sector is
found on a hard disk in a current scrubbing job, Oracle Exadata
Storage Server Software will schedule a follow-up scrubbing . When
no bad sectors are found in a scrubbing job for that disk, the schedule
will fall back to the scrubbing schedule specified by the
hardDiskScrubInterval attribute.

Exadata H.A.R.D. Exadata Hardware Assisted Resilient Data (HARD) provides a unique DB_BLOCK_CHEKSUM =
level of validation for Oracle block data structures such as data block TYPICAL or TRUE to enable all
address, checksum and magic numbers prior to allowing a write to the Exadata HARD checks.
physical disks. HARD validation with Exadata is automatic. The HARD
checks transparently handle all cases including ASM disk rebalance
operations and disk failures

ASM Scrubbing ASM provides ability to check the data integrity across all mirror extent Grid Infrastructure 19c and higher
sets.

Lost write detection is possible with assistance from Oracle Support.

Secure Erase Erases all data on both database servers and storage servers, and Exadata 12.2.1.1.0 and higher
resets InfiniBand switches, Ethernet switches, and power distribution
units back to factory default. You use this feature when you
decommission or repurpose an Oracle Exadata machine. The Secure
Eraser completely erases all traces of data and metadata on every
component of the machine

QUALITY OF Cell-to-Cell Data rebalancing may occur for a variety of reasons. For example, a Oracle Exadata System Software
SERVICE Rebalance rebalance operation might happen to maintain data redundancy when release 20.1.0.
Preserves flash and a hard disk suffers a real or predictive failure. When a rebalance Oracle Exadata Database
PMEM Cache operation moves data to a different storage server, some of the data Machine X8M.
Population might be cached in the write back flash cache and persistent memory
(PMEM) cache, also known as Persistent Memory Data Accelerator.
Relevant PMEM cache entries are automatically replicated to the
target storage server when a rebalance operation moves data to a
different storage server. This new feature maintains more consistent
application performance after a rebalance operation

Enhanced OLTP Oracle Exadata System Software automatically populates secondary Oracle Exadata System Software
High Availability mirrors into the flash cache when data is evicted from the buffer cache release 19.1.0
During Cell Outages, Oracle Exadata System Software automatically manages the
and Failures secondary mirrors in the flash cache in an optimal way so that newer
Oracle Database 19c
or more active secondary mirrors replace the cold data in the cache.
Thus, this feature provides higher availability and improved application
performance by greatly reducing the secondary mirror flash cache

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misses during cell or flash device failures and flash device Exadata Write Back Flash Cache
replacements. on High Capacity storage servers

This feature is useful for OLTP workloads only. Oracle Exadata Exadata Database Machine X6
System Software does not cache the secondary mirrors for scan data. and later (due to flash cache size
Also, this feature is only enabled for write-back Flash Cache. No requirements)
secondary mirror caching is done for write-through Flash Cache.

Improved High Overall system performance after flash failures has been improved. Exadata Storage Software 18c
Availability After Previously, after a flash failure, Oracle ASM would start reading from (18.1.0) and higher
Flash Failures the disks on the affected Exadata Storage Server as soon as flash
resilvering completes. However, the Storage Server would still have a
fewer than normal number of flash devices, so performance on that
Storage Server was affected. Starting with Oracle Exadata System
Software 18c (18.1.0), Oracle ASM starts reading from the disks only
after all failed flash devices are replaced on that Storage Server and
the flash cache is adequately warmed.

Database Side I/O Database Server Read and Write I/Os are bounded to avoid extended Grid Infrastructure 18c and higher
Cancellation blackouts. For Read I/Os, the read I/O is retried on the secondary for READ I/O Cancellation
extent. For Write I/Os that writes to all extents, the target disk is Grid Infrastructure 19c and higher
taken offline unless there no redundancy. for Write I/O Cancellation

I/O Latency Capping Redirects read I/O operations to another cell when the latency of the Exadata 11.2.3.3.1 and higher
for Read Operations read I/O is much longer than expected. This addresses the hung or Database and GI 11.2.0.4 BP8
very slow read IO cases due to device driver, controller, or firmware and higher
issues or failing or dying disks, flash or bad storage sectors.

I/O Latency Capping Redirects high latency write I/O operations to another healthy flash Exadata 12.1.2.1.0 and higher
for Write Operations device. This addresses the hung or very slow write IO cases. Database and GI 11.2.0.4 BP8
and higher

Write-back flash cache enabled

Exadata Cell I/O Ability to set I/O timeout threshold that allows for long running I/O to Exadata 11.2.3.3.1 and higher
Timeout Threshold be canceled and redirected to a valid mirror copy. Database and GI 11.2.0.4 BP8
and higher

Health Factor for When a hard disk enters predictive failure on Exadata Cell, Exadata Exadata storage 11.2.3.3 and
Predictive Failed automatically triggers an ASM rebalance to relocate data from the higher
Disk Drop disk. The ASM rebalances first reads from healthy mirrors to restore
redundancy. If all other mirrors are not available, then ASM rebalance
reads the data from the predictively-failed disk. This diverts rebalance
reads away from the predictively-failed disk when possible to ensure
optimal rebalance progress while maintaining maximum data
redundancy during the rebalance process. Ability to set I/O timeout
threshold that allows for long running I/O to be canceled and
redirected to a valid mirror copy.

Identification of Underperforming disks affect the performance of all disks because Exadata storage 11.2.3.2 and
Underperforming work is distributed equally to all disks. When an underperforming disk higher
disks and Automatic is detected, it is removed from the active configuration. Exadata
Removal (aka Disk performs internal performance tests. If the problem with the disk is
Confinement) temporary and it passes the tests, then it is brought back into the

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 AREA FEATURE HA BENFITS DEPENDENTCIES

configuration. If the disk does not pass the tests, then it is marked as
poor performance, and an Auto Service Request (ASR) service
request is opened to replace the disk. This feature applies to both
hard disks and flash disks.

I/O Resource I/O Resource Management (IORM) manages disk, flash IOPS and For I/O Resource Management
Management flash cache minimum and maximum flash cache size per pluggable for Flash and Flash Cache space
database or physical databases. It also now manages persistent resource management:
memory. Exadata Storage 12.1.2.1.0 and
higher and

Look for new resource management features with every release. Exadata X2 generation and
higher hardware

Network Resource Network Resource Management automatically and transparently Exadata Storage 11.2.3.3
Management prioritizes critical database network messages through the Exadata
network fabric ensuring fast response times for latency critical Oracle Database 11.2.0.4 and
operations. Prioritization is implemented in the database, RDMA higher
network fabric adapters, Exadata Software, Exadata network
adapters, and RDMA network fabric switches to ensure prioritization
happens through the entire Exadata internal network fabric. IB switch firmware release 2.1.3-
4 and higher
Latency sensitive messages such as Oracle RAC Cache Fusion
messages are prioritized over batch, reporting, and backup
messages. Log file write operations are given the highest priority to Incorporated in new X8M ROCE
ensure low latency for transaction processing. fabric.

Cell-to-Cell When a hard disk hits a predictive failure or true failure, and data Exadata Storage 12.1.2.2.0 and
Rebalance needs to be rebalanced out of it, some of the data that resides on this higher
Preserves Flash hard disk might have been cached on the flash disk, providing better Database and GI 12.1.0.2 BP11
Cache Population latency and bandwidth accesses for this data. To maintain an and higher
application's current performance SLA, it is critical to rebalance the
data while honoring the caching status of the different regions on the
hard disk during the cell-to-cell offloaded rebalance.

The cell-to-cell rebalance feature provides significant performance

improvement compared to earlier releases for application performance
during a rebalance due to disk failure or disk replacement.

Exadata Smart Exadata smart flash logging ensures low latency redo writes which is Exadata storage 11.2.2.4 and
Flash Logging crucial to database performance especially OLTP workloads. This is higher
achieved by writing redo to both hard disk and flash where the flash is
used as a temporary store (cache) for redo log data to maintain
EF is only available for Exadata
consistently low latency writes and avoid expensive write outliers.
X5 generations and higher.
Exadata smart flash logging is also needed for Extreme Flash (EF)
configuration since flash devices can occasionally be slow. To avoid
outliers for EF, redo writes are very selective in choosing and writing
to multiple flash drives.

PERFORMANCE Persistent Memory Oracle Exadata Storage Server can now use a Persistent Memory
Data Accelerator (PMEM) Cache in front of Flash Cache. Known as Persistent Memory Oracle Exadata System Software
Data Accelerator, the PMEM cache uses Intel Optane™ DC release 19.3.0
Persistent Memory Modules (DCPMM). The Database Server uses

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remote direct memory access (RDMA) to enable 10x faster access Oracle Database 19c
latency to remote persistent memory.

Since the persistent memory is used as a shared cache, caching

capacity effectively increases by 10x compared to directly using the
persistent memory modules as expensive storage. This arrangement
makes it cost effective to apply the benefits of persistent memory to
multi-terabyte databases.

Persistent Memory Consistent low latency for redo log writes is critical for OLTP database Oracle Exadata System Software
Commit Accelerator performance, since transactions are committed only when redo logs release 19.3.0
are persisted. Furthermore, slow redo log persistence affects critical Oracle Database 19c
database algorithms. With the persistent memory commit accelerator,
Oracle Exadata Storage Server
Oracle Database 19c uses Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) to
X8M-2
write redo records in persistent memory on multiple storage servers.
By using RDMA, the redo log writes are up to 8x faster, and excellent
resilience is provided because the redo log is persisted on multiple
storage servers.

On each storage server, the persistent memory area contains only the
recently written log records and persistent memory space is not
required for the entire redo log. Therefore, hundreds of databases can
share the persistent memory area, enabling consolidation with
consistent performance.

Smart Flash Log The Smart Flash Log Write-Back feature automatically and Oracle Exadata System Software
Write-Back transparently stores the entire contents of redo log files using Exadata release 20.1.0.
Smart Flash Cache in Write-Back mode, thereby eliminating the HDDs Oracle Exadata Database
as a potential performance bottleneck. Depending on the system Machine X7.
workload, overall log write throughput can improve up to 250%. Smart
Exadata Smart Flash Cache in
Flash Log Write-Back works transparently in conjunction with Exadata
Write-Back mode.
Smart Flash Log. Smart Flash Log Write-Back boosts overall log write
throughput, while Exadata Smart Flash Log continues to prevent log
write latency outliers. Applicable for primary and standby databases.

Fast In-Memory This feature provides a significant performance improvement for Oracle Exadata System Software
Columnar Cache columnar cache creation, especially when there are concurrent release 20.1.0
Creation workloads utilizing hard disk IO bandwidth. For example, a backup
that utilizes the hard disk bandwidth no longer needs to share that
bandwidth with the in-memory columnar cache creation. As a result,
both the backup and the in-memory columnar cache creation run
faster.

Active Bonding Exadata servers can be configured with active bonding for both ports Exadata X4 generation and
Network of InfiniBand card. Active bonding provides much higher network higher hardware
bandwidth when compared to active passive bonding in earlier
releases because both InfiniBand ports are simultaneously used for
Exadata storage 11.2.3.3 and
sending network traffic.
higher

Exadata Smart Write Exadata Smart Flash Cache transparently and intelligently caches Exadata storage 11.2.3.2 and
Back Flash Cache frequently-accessed data to fast solid-state storage, improving higher

Persistent After Cell database query and write response times and throughput. If there is a

Restarts problem with the flash cache, then the operations transparently fail

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over to the mirrored copies on flash. No user intervention is required.

Exadata Smart Flash Cache is persistent through power outages,
shutdown operations, cell restarts, and so on. Data in flash cache is
not repopulated by reading from the disk after a cell restarts. Write
operations from the server go directly to flash cache. This reduces the
number of database I/O operations on the disks..

Data Guard Redo Data Guard redo apply performance takes advantage of Exadata Rates observed in-house MAA
Apply Performance smart flash cache and overall I/O and network bandwidth enabling testing and with real world
increase of 10+ X observed redo apply rates of up to 500 MB/sec for OLTP workloads customers. Rates may vary
and up to 1000 MB/sec for batch and load workloads. Traditional depending on the amount of
storage tends to bottlenecked with network or storage IO bandwidth database consolidation and
restricting redo apply performance typically below 50 MB/sec. available system bandwidth and
Exadata generation.

In-Memory OTLP Exadata Storage Servers add a new memory cache in front of flash Exadata Storage 18c (18.1.0)
and Consolidation memory. This is similar to how the current flash cache is in front of and higher
Acceleration hard disks. This feature provides 100 microsecond (µs) online
transaction processing (OLTP) read IO latency, which is 2.5 times
Exadata X6 or X7 and higher
lower than the 250 μs flash OLTP read IO latency. You can use
generations
existing memory upgrade kits to add more memory to storage servers
to take advantage of this feature.
Patch for bug 26923396 applied
to the Oracle Database home

In-Memory Oracle Exadata System Software release 12.2.1.1.0 introduced the Exadata Storage 18c (18.1.0)
Columnar Caching support for In-Memory Columnar Caching on Storage Servers for and higher
on Storage Servers Hybrid Columnar Compressed (HCC) tables. Oracle Exadata System
Software 18c (18.1.0) extends the support for In-Memory Columnar
Oracle Database release 12c
Caching on Storage Server for additional table types, specifically
release 1 (12.1.0.2) version
uncompressed tables and OLTP compressed tables.
12.1.0.2.161018DBBP or Oracle
By extending the Database In-Memory format for uncompressed Database 12c release 2
tables and OLTP compressed tables, smart scan queries on more (12.2.0.1) and higher
table types can benefit from fast vector-processing in-memory
algorithms on data stored in the storage flash cache. With this format,
most in-memory performance enhancements are supported in Smart Patch for bug 24521608 if using

Scan including joins and aggregation. Database In-Memory format is Oracle Database 12c release 1

space efficient and usually takes up less space than uncompressed or (12.1.0.2)

OLTP compressed formats. Storing data in Database In-memory

format results in better Storage flash cache space utilization. Recommended Patch for bug
26261327 (Enables better
reverse offload functionality for
complex queries)

Patching of Exadata Patchmgr utility (and dbnodeupdate.sh) provides patching Patchmgr supports Exadata

Storage Cells, orchestration and automation for patching Exadata Storage Cells, Storage Cells

Exadata database Exadata database nodes and Exadata switches for both online and Patchmgr extended to support
nodes, and Exadata offline options. InfiniBand Switches with Oracle
Switches Exadata Storage 11.2.3.3.0 and
higher

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 AREA FEATURE HA BENFITS DEPENDENTCIES

Patchmgr to support
orchestration of updates for the
entire rack Exadata Storage 18c
(18.1.0) and higher

Automated Cloud Exadata Database Machine provides automated, cloud-scale Oracle Exadata System Software
Scale Performance performance monitoring covering a wide range of sub-systems, 19.1.0
Monitoring including CPU, memory, file system, IO, and network. This feature
combines artificial intelligence, years of real-world performance
triaging experience, and best practices.

Oracle Exadata System Software can automatically detect

performance issues and figure out the root cause without human
intervention. Examples of how this feature operates include:

If a spinning process is taking up all the resources on the system

and impacting database performance, Oracle Exadata System
Software automatically detects the CPU spin, pinpoints the exact
process that is causing the spin, and generates an alert.

If the Oracle database is not properly configured with huge pages

according to the best practice recommendation, Oracle Exadata
System Software automatically detects the misconfiguration and
generates an alert for the affected database instances.

There is no configuration required for this feature. To receive alerts,

you must configure the notification mechanism. See Monitoring
Requests and Alerts for Oracle Exadata Storage Server and ALTER
DBSERVER.

MANAGEMENT Online Flash Disk Starting with Exadata Database Machine X7-2L and X7-8, flash disks Exadata Extreme Flash Storage
Replacement in High Capacity Storage Server can also be replaced online without Server
Exadata X7 Storage server downtime.
Servers
OR

Oracle Exadata System Software

18c or higher and Exadata High
Capacity Storage Server X7-2 or
Exadata Database Machine X7-8

Storage Server The Storage Server Cloud Scale Software Update feature introduces Exadata Storage 18c and higher
Cloud Scale a brand new cloud-scale software update process for storage servers.
Software Update You point the storage servers to a software store. The storage servers
download new software in the background. You can schedule the
preferred time of software update. Storage servers automatically
upgrade the Oracle Exadata System Software in a rolling fashion
while keeping the databases online. A single software repository can
be used for hundreds of storage servers. This feature provides simpler
and faster software updates for Cloud and On-Premise customers.

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Performance Updating Oracle Exadata Storage Server Software now takes Oracle Exadata Storage Server
improvements for significantly less time. By optimizing internal processing even further, Software release 12.1.2.3.0 and
Storage Server the cell update process is now up to 5 times faster compared to higher
Software Updates previous releases. Even though most Exadata patching occurs with
the application online, this enhancement dramatically reduces the
patching window.

Performance Database server software update process now takes significantly less Exadata Storage 18c and higher
improvements for time than before and is up to 40% faster compared to previous
Exadata DB Server releases. This helps reduce the cost and effort required to update the
Software Updates software on database server.

Flash and Disk Life Monitors ASM rebalance operations due to disk failure and Oracle Database release 12.1.0.2
Cycle Management replacement. Management Server sends an alert when a rebalance BP4 and later,
Alerts operation completes successfully or encounters an error. Simplify Oracle Exadata Storage Server
status management. Software release 12.1.2.1.0 and
higher.

Cell Alert Summary Oracle Exadata Storage Server Software periodically sends out an e- Oracle Exadata Storage Server
mail summary of all open alerts on Exadata Cells. The open alerts e- Software release 11.2.3.3.0 and
mail message provides a concise summary of all open issues on a higher
cell.

LED Notification for When a storage server disk needs to be removed, a blue LED light is Oracle Exadata Storage Server
Storage Server Disk displayed on the server. The blue light makes it easier to determine Software release 11.2.3.2.0 and
Removal which server disk needs maintenance. higher

Drop Hard Disk for Simple command for an administrator to remove hard disk from Oracle Exadata Storage Server
Replacement Exadata cell. The command checks to ensure that the grid disks on Software release 11.2.3.3.0 and
that hard disk can be safely taken offline from ASM without causing a higher
disk group force dismount. If it is successful, service LED on the disk
will be turned on for easy replacement.

Drop BBU for Simple command for an administrator to initiate an online BBU Exadata X3 and X4 generations
Replacement (battery backup unit) replacement. The command changes the only. Exadata X5s disk controller
controller to write-through caching and ensures that no data loss can HBAs come with 1 GB supercap-
occur when the BBU is replaced in case of a power loss. backed write cache instead of
BBU.

Minimize or I/Os are automatically redirected to healthy drives. The targeted X5 Storage or higher since power
eliminates false disk unhealthy disk is power cycled. If the drive returns to normal status, cycle support required in chassis
failures then it will be re-enabled and resynchronized. If the drive continues to Only relevant for High Capacity
fail after being power cycled, then it will be dropped. Eliminates false- Hard Disks and Extreme Flash
positive disk failures and helps preserve data redundancy, reduce SSDs
operational management and avoids drop rebalance.

Exadata AWR and The Exadata Flash Cache Performance Statistics sections have been Oracle Exadata Storage Server
Active Report enhanced in the AWR report: 1) Added support for Columnar Flash Software release 12.1.2.2.0 and
Cache and Keep Cache. 2) Added a section on Flash Cache higher
Performance Summary to summarize Exadata storage cell statistics
along with database statistics.
Oracle Database release 12.1.0.2
Bundle Patch 11 and later,

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The Exadata Flash Log Statistics section in the AWR report now
includes statistics for first writes to disk and flash.I/Os are X5 Storage or higher since power
automatically redirected to healthy drives. The targeted unhealthy cycle support required in chassis
disk is power cycled. If the drive returns to normal status, then it will
Only relevant for High Capacity
be re-enabled and resynchronized. If the drive continues to fail after
Hard Disks and Extreme Flash
being power cycled, then it will be dropped. Eliminates false-positive
SSDs
disk failures and helps preserve data redundancy, reduce operational
management and avoids drop rebalance.

POST DEPLOYMENT – EXADATA MAA CONFIGURATION

The following sections provide references to complementary Exadata MAA practices:

1. Exadata Holistic Health Check: Refer to Oracle Exadata Database Machine EXAchk or HealthCheck (Doc ID 1070954.1).

2. Overview and Follow Up of Features/Solutions: Oracle Exadata Database Machine: Maximum Availability Architecture
Presentation and corresponding HA documentation https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/high-
availability.html

3. Exadata Database Consolidation Best Practices: Best Practices For Database Consolidation On Oracle Exadata Database
Machine

4. Exadata VM Practices: Oracle Exadata Database Machine: KVM Virtualization Best Practices for RoCE/PMEM-Based
Systems or Oracle Exadata and OVM - Best Practices

5. Exadata Software Updates Practices: Oracle Exadata Software Planned Maintenance

6. Exadata Maintenance Guide or Exadata docs: https://docs.oracle.com/en/engineered-systems/exadata-database-

machine/books.html

7. Backup and Restore Practices: Oracle Exadata Database Machine Backup and Restore Configuration and Operational Best
Practices

8. Generic Exadata MAA white papers: https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/high-availability/exadata-maa-best-

practices.html

9. Cloud MAA papers: https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/high-availability/oracle-cloud-maa.html

10. Generic MAA papers including application failover, Active Data Guard, GoldenGate, Migration practices:
https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/high-availability/oracle-database-maa-best-practices.html

OPERATIONAL BEST PRACTICES FOR EXADATA MAA

The following operational best practices are required for a successful Exadata implementation and documented in 6 Operational
Prerequisites to Maximizing Availability . Key elements are highlighted below.

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» Document your high availability and performance service-level agreements (SLAs) and create an outage/solution matrix that maps to
your service level agreements.
Understanding the impact to the business and the resulting cost of downtime and data loss is fundamental to establishing Recovery
Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO). RTO measures your tolerance for downtime while RPO measures
your tolerance for data loss. It is also likely that RTO and RPO will be different for different classes of outages. For example, server
and disk failures usually have RTO/RPO of zero. A complete site failure may have larger RTO/RPO as well as less stringent
performance SLAs. This is due to managing the trade-off between the potential frequency of an outage occurring and the cost or
complexity of implementing HA/DR.
» Validate HA and Performance SLAs. Perform simple database node, database instance and database failure testing to validate the
expected HA response including all automatic, automated, or manual repair solutions. Ensure that the application RTO and RPO
requirements are met. Ensure that application performance is acceptable under different scenarios of component failures. For
example, does the application continue to meet performance SLAs after node failure, Exadata Storage cell failure, and Data Guard
role transition?
» Periodically (e.g. at least once a year) upgrade Exadata and database software as recommended in My Oracle Support Note
888828.1.
Exadata will be delivered and deployed with the then current recommended HA software and system components. Once deployed it
is necessary to periodically run exachk and refer to the Exadata software maintenance best practices section of the MAA scorecard
to evaluate if your existing Exadata software is within recommended range. The software maintenance checks within exachk will alert
you to any critical software issues that may be relevant to your environment (be sure to download the latest version of exachk before
running).

Between exachk releases a new Exadata critical issue that requires prompt attention may be identified, resolved, and information
about the issue published in My Oracle Support Note 1270094.1. To receive proactive notification of newly published Alerts for
Exadata critical issues from My Oracle Support, configure Hot Topics E-Mail for product Oracle Exadata Storage Server Software.

» Pre-production validation and testing of software patches is one of the most effective ways to maintain stability. The high-level steps
are:
» Review the patch and upgrade documentation.
» Evaluate any rolling upgrade opportunities in order to minimize or eliminate planned downtime.
» Evaluate whether the patch qualifies for Standby-First Patching, described in My Oracle Support Note 1265700.1.
» Validate the application in a test environment and ensure the change meets or exceeds your functionality, performance, and
availability requirements. Automate the procedure and be sure to also document and test a fallback procedure.
» If applicable, perform final pre-production validation of all changes on a Data Guard standby database before applying them to a
production system.
» Apply the change in your production environment.
» Execute the Exadata MAA health check (exachk), as described in My Oracle Support Note 1070954.1. Before and after each
software patch, before and after any database upgrade, or minimally every month, download the latest release of exachk and run it in
your test and production environments to detect any environment and configuration issues. Checks include verifying the software and
hardware and warning if any existing or new MAA, Oracle RAC, or Exadata hardware and software configuration best practices need
to be implemented. An MAA score card has been added with MAA configuration checks and best practices. An upgrade module has
been added to proactively detect any configuration issues pre and post database upgrade.
» Execute Data Guard role transitions and validate restore and recovery operations. Periodically execute Application and Data Guard
switchovers to fully validate all role transition procedures. We recommend conducting role transition testing a minimum of once per
quarter.
» Configure Exadata monitoring and Automatic Service Request2. Incorporate monitoring best practices as described in Enterprise
Manager MAA OTN website.

Importance of a Test Environment

2 http://www.oracle.com/us/support/auto-service-request/index.html

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Investment in sufficient test system infrastructure is essential to Exadata MAA. The benefits and trade-offs of various strategies for
deploying test systems for Exadata are described in Table 2.

TABLE 2. TRADEOFFS FOR DIFFERENT TEST AND QA ENVIRONMENTS

TEST ENVIRONMENT BENEFITS AND TRADEOFFS

Full Replica of the Production Exadata Validate all patches and software changes. Validate all functional tests.

Full performance validation at production scale

Full HA validation especially if the replica includes the standby system.

Standby Exadata Validate most patches and software changes. Validate all functional tests.

Full performance validation if using Data Guard Snapshot Standby but this can
extend recovery time if a failover is required.

Role transition validation.

Resource management and scheduling is required.

Shared Exadata Validate most patches and software changes. Validate all functional tests.

This environment may be suitable for performance testing if enough system

resources can be allocated to mimic production.

Typically, however, a subset of production system resources, compromising

performance testing/validation.

Resource scheduling is required.

Smaller Exadata system or Exadata with Validate all patches and software changes. Validate all functional tests.
Exadata Snapshots No performance testing at production scale.

Limited full-scale high availability evaluations.

Exadata snapshots are extremely storage efficient.

Older Exadata system Validate most patches and software changes. Limited firmware patching test.

Validate all functional tests unless limited by some new hardware feature

Limited production scale performance tests.

Limited full-scale high availability evaluations.

Non-Exadata system Validate database and grid infrastructure software and patches only.

Validate database generic functional tests.

Limited testing of Exadata specific software features (e.g., HCC, IORM, Storage
Index, etc.)

Very limited production scale performance tests

Limited high availability evaluations.

CONCLUSION
Exadata MAA is an integrated solution that provides the highest performing and most available platform for Oracle Database. This
technical whitepaper has highlighted the HA capabilities that are delivered pre-configured with every Exadata Database Machine along
with post-delivery configuration and operational best practices used by administrators to realize the full benefits of Exadata MAA.

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APPENDIX 1: EXADATA MAA OUTAGE AND SOLUTION MATRIX

Unplanned Outages
The following outage and solution matrix in Table 3 is an example of extensive high availability testing that Oracle conducts. The MAA
recommended solution is provided for each type of outage along with the expected application recovery time (RTO) assuming sufficient
system resources are still available to meet your application’s performance SLAs and the application has been configured to
transparently fail over to an available service.. To evaluate operational readiness and evaluate if your application’s performance SLAs
are met, Oracle recommends simulating the key faults (e.g. instance failure, node failure, logical failures, hangs and complete database
failure to validate DR) while running a real-world (using Real Application Testing and Database Replay) workload on an Exadata MAA
test system. The priority column reflects suggested testing priority based on combination of probability of occurrence, importance of
operational readiness, customer testing importance (not Oracle testing priority). Most outages should incur zero database downtime
and a minimal application brownout for any connections. If comparing with different hardware or storage vendor, inject the same
equivalent fault and repeat the same workload for both environments. For real world examples of how Exadata achieves end-to-end
application availability and near zero brownout for various hardware and software outages, refer to this Exadata MAA video
(http://vimeo.com/esgmedia/exadata-maa-tests) or the latest Exadata MAA presentation (https://www.oracle.com/a/tech/docs/exadata-
maa.pdf) .

Whether you are deploying manual or automatic failover, evaluate end-to-end application failover time or brownout in addition to
understanding the impact that individual components have on database availability. Refer to Continuous Availability - Application
Checklist for Continuous Service for MAA Solutions to enable applications to minimize impact.

If there are sufficient system resources after an unplanned planned outage, the application impact can be very low as
indicated by the table below.

TABLE 3. UNPLANNED OUTAGE/SOLUTION MATRIX

OUTAGE SCOPE FAULT INJECTION PROCESS EXADATA MAA PRIORITY

site failure Seconds to 5 minutes3 LOW BUT

Database Failover with a Standby Database WORTH

TESTING FOR
Complete Site Failover
DR
Application Failover READINESS

clusterwide failure or Seconds to 5 minutes LOW BUT

production Exadata Database Failover with a Standby Database WORTH
Database Machine TESTING FOR
Complete Site Failover
failure DR
Application Failover READINESS

computer failure 1. Unplug or forcefully power off Small application downtime for cluster HIGH
(node) or RAC database node detection, cluster reconfiguration and
database node 2. Wait 30 seconds or more instance recovery. For Exadata, cluster
failure (simulating 3. Restore power and power up detection can be as low as 2 seconds.
the impact of database node, if needed Managed automatically by Oracle RAC
hardware failure, 4. Wait for database node to be fully Recovery for Unscheduled Outages
RAC node evictions, up
reboots or
motherboard failure)

3 Recovery time indicated applies to database and existing connection failover. Network connection changes and other site-specific failover activities may lengthen overall
recovery time.

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 OUTAGE SCOPE FAULT INJECTION PROCESS EXADATA MAA PRIORITY

Database Instance Kill -11 PMON background process or Small application downtime for affected HIGH
failure shutdown abort the target instance connections. For the affected connections of

or RAC database the failed instance, brownout will consist of

instance failure cluster reconfiguration (1sec) and instance

recovery which is significantly faster on
Exadata with Exadata write back flash cache.
No database downtime4.

Managed automatically by Oracle RAC

Recovery for Unscheduled Outages

Exadata Storage 1. Unplug or forcefully power off Small application impact with sub-second cell LOW
Server failure storage cell storage delay using our InfiniBand fabric fast
(simulating a storage 2. Wait longer than ASM disk repair detection mechanism.
head failure) timer

Exadata disk pull 1. Pull disk out Wait 10 seconds or Zero application brownout with Exadata write- LOW
and then push more back flash cache. Exadata and Oracle ASM
2. Plug the same disk drive back in tolerate storage failures and quickly redirect
the same slot I/O to mirror(s) with minimum service level
impact.

Oracle can distinguish between a user pulling

a good disk and a true failed disk. For a disk
pull and push, a simple ASM
resynchronization is done of the delta
changes.

Exadata disk failure Use the simulation commands: A true disk failure results in an immediate HIGH

1. alter physicaldisk <disk drop of the failed disk and subsequent ASM

controller:disk slot #> simulate rebalance with no service level impact.

failuretype=fail Starting in Exadata cell 11.2.3.2.0 or higher, a

2. wait 1 minute blue LED light will indicate when the failed

3. alter physicaldisk <disk disk can be replaced.

controller:disk slot #> simulate

failuretype=none

Exadata flash disk or 1. Cannot physically pull the flash Small application impact with write back flash MEDIUM
flash DOM failure disk. Simulation command: alter cache and fast repair of stale data.
physicaldisk <physicaldisk name of
flash module> simulate
failuretype=fail
2. Wait 1 minute
3. End Simulation command: alter
physicaldisk <physicaldisk name of
flash module> simulate
failuretype=none

4Database is still available, but portion of application connected to failed system is temporarily affected.

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 OUTAGE SCOPE FAULT INJECTION PROCESS EXADATA MAA PRIORITY

Power failure or PDU 1. Pull power to one of the PDU No application brownout due to redundant LOW
failure or loss of power failure.
power source or
supply to any
computer or Exadata
cell storage server

human error < 30 minutes5 HIGH

Recovering from Human Error

hangs or slow down See Oracle Database High Availability HIGH

Overview documentation for solutions for
unplanned downtime and for

Application Failover

5 Recovery times from human errors depend primarily on detection time. If it takes seconds to detect a malicious DML or DLL transaction, then it typically only requires seconds to
flash back the appropriate transactions, if properly rehearsed. Referential or integrity constraints must be considered.

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Deploying Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture with Exadata Database Machine

July, 2020

Author: Lawrence To
Contributing Authors: Michael Nowak, Glen Hawkins