I’ve had my week in Palo Alto with the Delphix people. I really don’t know where the time went to – but I had a lot of interesting conversations with a number of very able people; plenty of time to experiment; and I’ve even been able to install Delphix on my laptop (as a 64-bit Open Solaris 10 VM under VMWare). I liked the product, and I was impressed with the team they’ve got working on it.
We’ve pencilled in an intial online webinar for Friday 5th April which will probably feature an informal chat where Kyle Hailey and I talk about my impressions of the product and what I’ve done with it so far. Then, in about a month’s time, we’ll have a more technical discussion.
In the meantime, it occurred to me that my next blog post ought to be about LOBs as this would be a nice way to introduce you to one of the key ideas behind DxFS (the Delphix-extended file system that’s based on ZFS).
Update 22nd March
The link to register for the online conversation is now up. We’re timetabled for 5th April 9:00 am PDT (which is currently 4:00 pm GMT, but it will be 5:00 pm BST by then.)
Oracle Scratchpad 
Thanks Johnathan – did you get any pricing information, there is a scarcity on the net.
Comment by DBA Mel — March 19, 2013 @ 9:06 pm GMT Mar 19,2013 |
Thanks. Will definitely want to attend that webinar.
Comment by vikram rathour — March 20, 2013 @ 4:19 am GMT Mar 20,2013 |
Hi,
Do you know if there is a way to download a trial of Delphix?
Thanks!
/P
Comment by Peter — March 20, 2013 @ 7:44 am GMT Mar 20,2013 |
@Peter, For now the main way to work with the product live is arranging a webex with a sales team who can demo the product. We are also working on a couple of other methods. One method is working on set of labs we have set up in a sandbox environment on a hosting service called Skytap. On Skytap we have several environment templates with multiple machine setups. The environments can be started and the user can step through various Delphix workflows in the lab exercises. We have about 4 hours of labs but no certification test yet. The third option is potentially a blogger version where people could try out the software for evaluation and blog about it. Jonathan Lewis is our first blogger to get blogger version.
for demos contact sales@delphix.com. For skytap and/or blogger copy contact me at kyle.hailey@delphix.com
Comment by Kyle Hailey — March 20, 2013 @ 7:09 pm GMT Mar 20,2013 |
@Kyle
Ok. Thank you.
/P
Comment by Peter — March 21, 2013 @ 8:40 am GMT Mar 21,2013 |
[…] Join Jonathan Lewis and myself for a discussion and sharing of first impressions of Delphix. Jonathan worked closely with the Delphix team investigating performance, comparing technologies, and testing community-requested use cases. In this chat, Jonathan and I will have an informal discussion on the preliminary results of Jonathan’s first-hand experiences with Delphix, working closely with our team to learn about the functional aims, implementation strategies, and underlying technologies. As part of his hands-on activity, Jonathan started with the simple provisioning benefits of Delphix, and went on to look at the performance implications of various scenarios, including test cases suggested by the Oracle community. See Jonathan’s first report on his blog at https://jonathanlewis.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/delphix-debrief/ […]
Pingback by DB Optimizer » Join Jonathan Lewis for a discussion of Delphix — March 21, 2013 @ 5:04 pm GMT Mar 21,2013 |
Peter, Delphix is an appliance, just like Oracle database appliance. It runs on OpenSolaris and does COW snapshots of the database. It uses RMAN behind the scene. If you want a trial software, let me recommend Commvault Simpana, which can do the same thing, and more. Simpana uses native SAN snapshot capability, which every modern SAN has, and it can be downloaded and tested for free on http://www.commvault.com.
Comment by Mladen Gogala — March 25, 2013 @ 9:42 pm GMT Mar 25,2013 |
@Mladen dedup is great for compacting static backup storage but that is a different subject. Static backups are good insurance for disaster recovery but sort of a waste as the data isn’t being actively used. Delphix actively uses data specifically for provisioning live copies of databases and all the data is live and shared. A second live copy of a database only takes a few MB even when the database is many TB but more importantly only takes a couple of minutes and a few clicks of a mouse – no need for storage or RMAN knowledge. A fringe benefit is that one can eliminate their dedup backups at least for databases.
BTW Delphix is a software stack that can be installed on x86 hardware and use any storage allocated to it – EMC, Netapp, direct attach, JBODs etc
Comment by Kyle Hailey — March 26, 2013 @ 5:04 am GMT Mar 26,2013 |
[…] https://jonathanlewis.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/delphix-debrief/ – debrief from visit Delphix […]
Pingback by DB Optimizer » Webcast June 19th: Jonathan Lewis – Expert Look at Delphix — June 18, 2013 @ 4:32 am BST Jun 18,2013 |