Delphix engine overview

What is Delphix?

Delphix is a data management platform that provides the ability to securely copy and share datasets. Using virtualization, you will ingest your data sources and create virtual data copies, which are full read-write capable database instances that use a small fraction of the resources a normal database copy would require. 

Overview

The Delphix Engine links to source physical databases via standard APIs and asks the source databases to send copies of their entire file and log blocks to it. The copy of the source database stored in the Delphix Engine, along with all incremental updates, is referred to as the dSource in Delphix terminology. 

After the initial loading, the Delphix Engine maintains synchronization with source databases based on a user-defined policy. Once linked, Delphix maintains a Timeflow of the source database - a record of snapshots and log changes. From any time within that Timeflow, a virtual database (referred to in Delphix terminology as a VDB) can be instantly provisioned from the Delphix Engine. VDBs are served from the shared storage footprint of the dSource database Timeflow, so no additional storage is required.

Multiple VDBs can be provisioned from any point in time in a Timeflow, down to the second. Once provisioned, a VDB is an independent, read-write database, and changes made to the VDB by users or applications are written to new, compressed blocks in Delphix storage. VDBs can be provisioned from other VDBs, and the data within VDBs refreshed from its parent VDB or dSource.