Oracle 11G introduces multiple new features around Real Application testing. This feature allows the database administrator to take control of the simulation of workload to test the impact of infrastructure and database level changes through the recreation of actual workloads.  Enterprises today face a daunting task and cost of retesting their entire application for every infrastructure or database change thats rolled out in the Organization. This feature is particularly helpful during OS, Oracle patch rollouts, conversion to RAC, movement to low cost grid computing hardware etc.

Oracle 11G Database Replay

Oracle 11G Database Replay allows the database administrator to capture the full production workload and then recreate the same in the test environment.

Workload Capture when enabled tracks and captures all external database requests and writes the data into a binary file called capture file.

Workload Processing is the step where the capture files are converted into replay files. Replay files contain all the necessary metadata needed for replaying the workload. This is the most resource intensive task and should be performed on a non-production server. Once the replay files are created, they can be reused any number of times without having to reprocess the workload.

Workload Replay is performed through the replay client which processes the replay files and submits the load / calls to the database with the exact timing and concurrency that it has recorded in the original system.  Depending on the workload being simulated, you may have to use multiple replay clients and a calibration tool is provided to help determine the replay clients needed to replay the workload.

Workload Analysis and Reporting allows you to generate detailed analysis of the capture and replay. All errors encountered during replay are reported and since the workload is replayed including DML and SQL queries, the test system should be a snapshot of production just before the workload is captured. Any divergence in rows returned by DML or queries is shows and the basic comparisons between the capture and replay is shown.