ORACLE REAL APPLICATION

TESTING
KEY BENENEFITS
The industry’s leading Solution for proactive • Increased business productivity
performance management and real workload through automation and zero-
scripting.

capacity planning • Improved quality of service of

mission critical databases through
Oracle Real Application Testing is an extremely cost-effective and easy-to-use proactive quick validation of system changes
performance management solution that enables businesses to fully assess the outcome of a directly on production
system changes in test or production. Oracle Real Application Testing enables predictable • Enables business agility through
application quality of service and helps avoid performance problems with closed loop significantly reduced risk and
automated tuning. It facilitates accurate consolidation and capacity planning and improves costs
business agility with faster and risk-free new technology adoption. Oracle Real Application • Highest quality production-scale
Testing significantly enhances DBA productivity by simply and easily validating database secure testing solution.
environment changes. Oracle Real Application Testing is comprised of the following
features: SPA Quick Check, SQL Performance Analyzer, Database Replay, Concurrent
Database Replay and the Database Consolidation Workbench.!

SPA QUICK CHECK

Example SPA Quick Check allows customers to easily and quickly validate system changes directly KEY FEATURES
on production databases without impacting end-users. It is available starting from Oracle
• SPA Quick Check
Enterprise Manager 12c Database Plug-in (12.1.0.5) and supports all Oracle Databases Releases 11.2
• SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA)
and above. SPA Quick Check supports private-scoped, optimized trials, and change-aware
intelligent workflows allowing administrators to verify routine DBA tasks like optimizer statistics • Database Replay

gathering, validating SQL Profiles, and init.ora parameter changes with a single click of a button. It • Consolidated Database Replay
is highly optimized and resource controlled, consuming an order of magnitude fewer resources, • Concurrent database replay
making it viable to test directly on production. • Workload scale-up and custom
workload creation support
• Database Consolidation
Workbench
SQL PERFORMANCE ANALYZER
SPA provides fine-grain assessment of an environment change on SQL execution plans and
statistics by running the SQL statements in isolation and serial manner in before-change
and after-change environments. SPA functionality is well integrated with existing SQL
Tuning Set (STS), SQL Tuning Advisor, and SQL Plan Management functionality. As a
result, SPA completely automates and simplifies the manual and time-consuming process of
assessing the impact of a change on even extremely large SQL workloads (thousands of SQL
statements) and automating the remediation of any SQL regressions as a result of the system
change. Figure 1 below illustrates a typical SPA Report.

1 DATA SHEET | Oracle Real Application Testing | Version 1.00

Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates | Confidential: Public
 RELATED PRODUCTS

Real Application Testing delivers

maximum benefits when used with the
following Oracle products:

• Oracle Diagnostics Pack

• Oracle Tuning Pack
• Oracle Test Data Management
Pack
• Oracle Database Lifecycle
Management Pack
Figure 1. SQL Performance Analyzer Report.

Examples of usage for SPA include:

• Database upgrade, patches, and initialization parameter changes
• Configuration changes to the operating system, hardware, or database
• Schema changes such as adding new indexes, partitioning or materialized views
• Validating optimizer statistics refresh or SQL tuning actions
• Exadata simulation for DW/DSS workloads
• Database consolidation to a single or Container Database
Database migration to Cloud

DATABASE REPLAY
Example Database Replay workload capture is performed at the database server level and
therefore can be used to assess the impact of any system change or use case in the
database tier such as:
• Database upgrades, patches, parameter, schema changes
• Configuration changes such as conversion from a single instance to RAC, ASM
• Storage, network, interconnect changes, Operating system and hardware migrations
(including to Exadata)
• Database consolidation to a single or Container Database
• Database migration to cloud
• Workload stress testing, capacity planning, and scale-up testing
Database Replay workflow consists of the following three phases that are described below:

I. WORKLOAD CAPTURE
When workload capture is enabled, all external client requests directed to the Oracle
server are stored into compact “capture” files on the database host file system while
incurring negligible overhead. These files contain all relevant information about the
call needed for replay such as SQL text, bind values, wall clock time, SCN, etc. The
workload that has been captured on Oracle Database Release 11.2 and higher can be
replayed on Oracle Database Release 11.2 and higher.

II. WORKLOAD REPLAY

Before performing workload replay, the test system has the intended system change
applied and database restored to the point in time before the capture. Once replay is
initiated, a special client program called the “replay client” replays the workload from
the processed files. It submits calls to the database with the exact same timing and
concurrency as in the capture system and exercises the exact same load on the system
as seen in the production environment.

2 DATA SHEET | Oracle Real Application Testing | Version 1.00

Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates | Confidential: Public
 III. ANALYSIS AND REPORTING
Extensive reports that encompass both high-level summary and detailed drill-down
information in terms of errors, performance and data divergence are provided to help
understand how the replay fared in comparison to capture or other replays. Basic
performance comparison reports between replay and capture or other replays are
provided and for advanced analysis AWR, ASH, and Replay Compare Period reports
are available.

CONSOLIDATED DATABASE REPLAY

Example A chosen database consolidation strategy can be validated using Consolidated
Database Replay thereby minimizing its associated risk. Consolidated Database Replay
supports simultaneous replay of workloads captured from one or multiple systems. These
captured workloads can be from any database release or operating system on which workload
capture is supported. Some typical use cases for Consolidated Database Replay include:

• Schema consolidation into a single database

• Database consolidation using Oracle Pluggable Databases
• Testing impact of enabling Resource Manager in a consolidated environment
Figure 2 below illustrates Oracle Enterprise Manager 13c, Database Replay Summary Page
for a successfully completed concurrent replay.

Figure 2: Consolidated Database Replay Summary Page

CONCURRENT DATABASE REPLAY

Oracle Real Application Testing was designed to capture and replay multitenant databases at
the root multitenant container database (CDB) level. Starting with Oracle Database Release
19c, you can capture and replay the workload from within an individual pluggable database
(PDB).

This enhancement enables you to capture and replay workloads at the PDB level. This leads
to better testing, less downtime, and more effective and efficient change control.

CAPACITY PLANNING WITH DATABASE REPLAY

3 DATA SHEET | Oracle Real Application Testing | Version 1.00

Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates | Confidential: Public
Database Replay supports workload stress testing, capacity planning, scale-up testing using
any of the three methods namely, Time Shifting, Workload Folding, and Schema
Remapping. Time Shifting workload scale-up is useful to conduct system stress testing by
adding workloads to an existing workload capture, scheduling them to align their peak
activity or as intended, and replaying them concurrently. Workload folding method consists
of slicing an existing captured workload into two subsets by specifying a point in time
within the captured duration. Then one can double the workload by folding the workload
along this specified point-in-time. This is done by submitting simultaneous replays
(consolidated replay) of the created subset workloads on the target database. This
consolidated database replay effectively allows one to double the current workload without
the need to use scripting or supplying binds. Workload Folding scale-up method is suitable
for applications where individual transactions are mostly independent of each other.
Schema Remapping workload scale-up method enables you to perform scale-up testing by
remapping database schemas. This method is useful in cases when you are deploying
multiple instances of the same application such as a multi-tenant application, or adding a
new geographical area to an existing application. Additionally, Oracle Enterprise Manager
Cloud Control 13c provides comprehensive support for the above-mentioned Database
Replay capacity planning and scale-up testing techniques by providing an intuitive
graphical interface. This allows customers to easily and accurately size their system for
future growth and consolidation while maintaining or improving their business SLAs.

DATABASE CONSOLIDATION WORKBENCH

Database Consolidation Workbench is a comprehensive end-to-end solution for managing
database consolidation. It provides a risk-free and accurate approach to consolidation by
eliminating guess work and human errors. The Database Consolidation Workbench uses
historical workload metrics - both database and host - to produce an optimal consolidation
plan that maps many sources databases to fewer databases (both non-CDB/CDB) or servers on
existing or yet to be procured hardware.

The Database Consolidation Workbench also automates the entire database consolidation
implementation process - saving DBAs the manual error-prone effort of consolidation. The
different modes of consolidation supported (e.g., RMAN, Data Pump, Cross Platform
Transportable Tablespaces, Data Guard) in the Workbench enable IT administrators and
DBAs to implement the chosen consolidation strategy with minimal downtime based on the
business needs. The ability to execute the consolidation process in parallel in an automated
fashion means that the business can realize consolidation savings faster and reduce operating
costs more quickly.
After consolidation, the Database Consolidation Workbench uses SQL Performance
Analyzer (SPA) to validate the performance of the migrated databases to ensure the
required quality of service and SLAs are being met”.

4 DATA SHEET | Oracle Real Application Testing | Version 1.00

Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates | Confidential: Public
LICENSING
Real Application Testing features are accessible through Oracle Enterprise Manager, and
command-line APIs provided with Oracle Database software. The use of these and other
features described in the product licensing documentation requires licensing of the Oracle
Real Application Testing option regardless of the access mechanism.

CONNECT WITH US
Call +1.800.ORACLE1 or visit oracle.com.
Outside North America, find your local office at oracle.com/contact.

blogs.oracle.com facebook.com/oracle twitter.com/oracle

Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is provided for information purposes only, and the contents hereof are subject to change without notice. This
document is not warranted to be error-free, nor subject to any other warranties or conditions, whether expressed orally or implied in law, including implied warranties and conditions of
merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. We specifically disclaim any liability with respect to this document, and no contractual obligations are formed either directly or indirectly by
this document. This document may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without our prior written permission.

This device has not been authorized as required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission. This device is not, and may not be, offered for sale or lease, or sold or leased, until
authorization is obtained.

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Intel and Intel Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC
International, Inc. AMD, Opteron, the AMD logo, and the AMD Opteron logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open
Group. 0120

Disclaimer: This document is for informational purposes. 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, timing, and pricing of any features or functionality described in this document may change and remains at the sole discretion of Oracle Corporation.