Prerequisites to deploying in GCP

Overview

This article outlines the prerequisites for deployment of the Delphix Engine on GCP. The setup user should have experience launching and configuring instances in the Google Cloud Platform environment. Review and complete the tasks in the next section before deployment.

Prerequisites

1. Review the Checklist of information required for installation and configuration

2. Make sure that the Google account being used to deploy the Delphix Engine has an appropriate level of enablement for the Delphix virtualization for GCP subscription.

3. Determine which virtual private cloud (VPC) is being used when launching the virtualization instance. To maximize performance, deploy the Delphix Engine instance in the same VPC/subnet in which the virtual databases (VDBs) will be created.
   Note:

   Provisioning a VDB requires a compute instance running the same database engine as the source. Please note, however, that the target instance only needs storage to accommodate the OS, database platform binaries, etc., because Delphix delivers all of the data files.

4. Make sure that the necessary ports are open.
   Note:

   Using the Delphix Engine for GCP will require connections to source and target database servers. Such connections require various ports to be open, enabling communications. For a detailed list of the network and port requirements, click the link that corresponds with the relevant database platform.

   1. Network and Connectivity Requirements for Oracle Environments

   2. Network and Connectivity Requirements for SQL Server Environments

   3. Network and Connectivity Requirements for SAP ASE Base Environments

   4. Network and Connectivity Requirements for Db2 Environments

5. Update Security Group settings to accommodate the necessary connections.

   1. Select the same Security Group that the current (or future) non-production EC2 compute nodes utilize.

   2. Modify the Security Group to allow access to all of the networking ports used by the Delphix Engine and the various source and target platforms. See links above for information about specific port configurations.

6. Allocate storage.

   1. To properly size the initial storage capacity and determine the number and size of Provisioned IOPs Volumes required, first create a list of the data sources intended for making dSources. A data source is typically a production database linked to the Virtualization Engine, enabling to create virtual, full, read-write copies of the source within minutes. The list should include the database name, platform (for example, Oracle or SQL Server), current size (in GB), the estimated number of virtual copies, and retention period (in days) of snapshots (backup copies).

   2. Delphix recommends using a minimum total of four disks to run the Delphix Engine. One disk is used for the boot device. The other four equally sized disks will be used for data storage. This also enables the Delphix Engine to achieve higher I/O rates by queueing more I/O operations to its storage.

Additional GCP configuration notes

• Delphix supports both Zonal and Regional SSD persistent disks.