Repository templates for Oracle databases

The primary use case and motivation for repository templates are to provide the Delphix administrator with control over the Oracle database parameters used during the staging phase of the VDB provisioning process. It is useful to be able to control these configuration parameters when the physical capabilities of the staging machine, such as CPU count and memory, are smaller than the physical capabilities of the machines hosting the source database repository.

The repository template is a relationship between three entities:

• A database repository – It is the Oracle home to which the vPDB will be provisioned on the target host.

• A database container – It is the source PDB.

• A VDB configuration template – A list of database configuration parameter names and values that you can save on the Delphix Engine to use at a later time. The VDB configuration template for the temporary CDB must contain at least the following database parameters:

  • compatible: Required for both Non-Multitenant and Multitenant sources. Must be set with the same value as in the dSource 'compatible' parameter.

  • enable_pluggable_database: Required for Multitenant sources only. Must be set to TRUE.

During the staging process, if you do not specify a repository template, then by default, the Delphix Engine will use the configuration parameters taken from the source database to configure the staged database. These parameters may not be appropriate, because the machine used for staging may be physically inferior to the machine hosting the source database.

Instead, the Delphix administrator can create a VDB configuration template, which would be appropriate for the physical machine hosting staging repository. (See VDB Config Templates) Then the admin can create a repository template entry that will bind together the VDB configuration template, database repository, and database container. This instructs the Delphix Engine to use configuration parameters from the VDB configuration template whenever the database container is staged on the database repository specified, instead of the parameters on the source database.

Currently, repository template relations can only be created via the command-line interface (CLI) in the repository > template.

Provisioning a VPDB using a Repository Template

Perform the following procedure to provision a VPDB using a repository template.

1. Create a VDB configuration template using the Delphix GUI called aux_cdb_params with the following parameters set as a bare minimum.

   CODE

   compatible = 12.1.0.2
   enable_pluggable_database = true
   sga_target = 1551892480

   The parameters required may differ given a specific environment's requirements from this but this should allow the startup of the auxiliary database.

2. Create a repository template called aux_cdb_templ using the CLI.

   CODE

   delphix repository template> create
   delphix repository template create *> set name=aux_cdb_templ
   delphix repository template create *> set container=PDB12C1
   delphix repository template create *> set repository=OELC9/'/u01/app/oracle/12.1'
   delphix repository template create *> set template=aux_cdb_params
   delphix repository template create *> commit

   CODE

   delphix repository template 'pb12c1rt'> ls
   Properties
       type: SourceRepositoryTemplate
       name: aux_cdb_templ
       container: PDB12C1
       reference: REPOSITORY_TEMPLATE_REF-4
       repository: OELC9/'/u01/app/oracle/12.1'
       template: aux_cdb_params

   In the above example:

   1.  name is what you want the template name to be.

   2. the container is the source PDB.

   3. the repository is the target environment/ORACLE_HOME that the CDB target is running from.

   4. the template is the name of the database template created in the GUI.

3. Provision a virtual pluggable database (VPDB) via the Delphix GUI using the source PDB defined as the container in the repository template and provision the VPDB to the target environment defined by the repository (target environment/Oracle Home combination) in the repository template.