This document summarizes Ahmed Jassat's presentation on implementing Oracle Data Guard and RMAN backups at Medscheme, South Africa's largest medical scheme administrator. It describes how Data Guard was used to create near-instant clones for development, testing, training and disaster recovery. This eliminated lengthy restore times from tape backups and saved costs by reducing server requirements and eliminating the need for tapes, restore assistance and downtime. Specific examples where Data Guard improved payroll processing and issue resolution are provided. The presentation concludes Data Guard provided significant cost savings and improved services for Medscheme and its customers.

2. Saving Millions using Oracle
E-business suite with
dataguard 11g
Ahmed Jassat
APPS DBA

3. • R12 E-Business Suite Customer
• South Africa's Largest Managed Care
Services Provider
• Largest Medical Scheme Administrator In
South Africa
• Service Over Three Million People Through
Network Of Branches Located Throughout
Southern Africa And Mauritius

4. Target Audience
Oracle APPS DBAs
Oracle DBAs
Technical Managers
Oracle Sysadmins
Disaster Recovery planners
Technical Project Managers
Technology architects'

5. Technology Used

6. What is Active DataGuard ?
The ability to use your Physical Standby for
much more than just High Availability or
Disaster Recovery!

8. Sent to
Bryansto
n 3 Hours to restore
Backup done to from Tape
tape

13. Current setup
To
Archives Shipped
DGuard

14. Implementation of Data Guard and Oracle RMAN
Archives shipped to
Data Guard
- Archives
backed up
every 30
minutes
– Database
backup every
Friday

15. Medscheme Return on Investment
•No need Linux admin assistance
•No need APPS DBA assistance
•No need tapes
•Saving Additional Servers {2}
•Saving network
•Server Room saving {aircon,rental, space,security,ups…}
•Saving on software Licensing
•Go Green

17. With DataGuard

18. We have noticed the following cost saving to
•
•
business
No requirements of tapes
No requirements for assistance of Linux admin
• No requirements for restores
• No human interaction , only to check logs
• No functional support or super users on production
• Time saved from 24 working hours to 20 minutes for clones
• DR available immediately
• DataGuard environment is read only which means it can be used for reporting
• Production Servers are up and running 24 X 7 X 365
• Clones to DEV, UAT, Training and dba environments takes 1 hour as clones on local servers
• Users and support team can test anything at anytime
• Copy of production available 7 days a week.
• Backup of production can be verified by dataguard.
• Rman backups can be run from the DataGuard instance.
• No need to purchase expensive software for cloning.
• Daily copy of production which functional support team can use
• Assistance with OWC with Oracle as scripts and updates can be tested with production data immediately
• We noticed a reduction in TARS as support team could test solutions from metalink
• Patches can be tested immediately using Production data
• No more P1 SRs
• Super users can test changes to the system
• Demos can be given to Directors using latest data
• Training can be given with data from Production
• Disaster recovery environment is available immediately
• Changes can be made on TEST system and user acceptance testing can take place easy
• Emergency changes can be tested
• No additional money was spent on this solution

19. P1 SR 3-6274167101 : +I5 No tax
rates available after new tax setup
Clone Completed in
1 Hour ….

20. Internal Costing assumptions
Cost of DBA per hour R 650.00
Cost of Unix/Linux
administrator per hour R 550.00
Cost escalation per year 7%
Number of clones done per
month 4
Number of hours spent by
DBA per traditional clone 5
Number of hours spent by
Unix/Linux per traditional
clone 10
Number of additional tapes
purchased per period 5
Cost per tape R 2,000.00

21. Cost we not could calculate
1.Server room
2.Hardware
3.Networks
4.Facilities
5.Resources{Network ,Microsoft & Linux admin}

22. Traditional clones 1st month costing
DBA Time R 13,000.00
Unix Admin Time R 22,000.00
Tape Cost R 10,000.00
Sub-Total R 35,000.00
Tax Impact R -9,800.00
Total R 25,200.00
Cumulative Total R 25,200.00

23. Traditional clone 37st month spend
Cumulative Total R 1,001,196.00

24. Re-active Pro-active

25. Get Proactive and Maximize the Value
of Your Oracle Investment
Prevent Resolve Latest

26. Old Process of HR TRACE
Oracle
HR user request HR
picks up trace from
problem medscheme
Once Trace is Once
running on Request is
server user is completed
called DBA is called
to stop trace
DBA uploades file to
Metalink and this
process can take place
a number of times

27. New Process by using Patch
14051237
Oracle Support and Medscheme
Support can work with each other
without the need of a APPS DBA
Saving a lot of steps and time
Functional Support User can do
traces without the need of an APPS
DBA

28. Advantages
 Functional User can do tracing without the need of APPS DBA
 From 7 steps to 2 steps
 Quicker SR resolution
Saving on Overtime for everyone
From 2 client resources to one
No more ftp of files
An OWC can be taken immediately
Oracle can see the issue immediately
 No miscommunication
Improving the Oracle Product
The more proactive you are, the less reactive
you'll need to be!

29. Payroll
Issues where
Payroll could only be run after hours
Payroll ran for extremely long time
A lot of testing and hours spend due to
payroll running along time
Overtime for payroll admin
APPS DBA needed to be available all the
time
If a issue is pickuped, payroll could only be
run after hours which means time is wasted
Planning … Planning … Planning

30. Payroll
Benefits are
Payroll can be run anytime
No more working at night for payroll admin
No more working at night for apps dba
No more overtime for payroll admin
No more overtime for apps dba`
Payroll issues can be fixed during the day and run again during
the day
Huge improvement for Oracle Ebus
Huge improvement for payroll
All South African Customers benefit

33. Payroll

34. Payroll
Issues faced with the above process
1. Payroll Users had to e-mail the apps dbas for files
2. Payroll users had to have the apps dbas available if running payroll
afterhours
3. Auditing risk as the apps dba have access to these files
4. Too many steps involved to retrieve .mf file from server, 5 steps
5. If payroll is rerun the apps dba needs to extract the files again
6. Payroll User dependent on APPS DBA
7. Overtime for both APPS DBA and Payroll User
8. APPS DBA needs to be available all the time
9. Miscommunication causes issues between Payroll and APPS DBA
10.Customers is not happy with the above process

35. Payroll

36. Payroll
New process benefits
1. Saves on resources
2. No more required to e-mail APPS DBA
3. Complies with Auditing
4. No more storing the files on PCs for APPS DBA
5. No more storing the files on PCs for HR USER
6. Adds feature to Oracle ebus
7. Saves costs on overtime for APPS DBA
8. Saves costs on overtime for HR user
9. Saves costs no need to purchasing a FTP tool
10. Customer will be happy
11. I have spoken to HR users & APPS DBAs … all of them want this
feature
12. Oracle ZA clients want this feature
13. Users will be kept working in the application
14. Single point of failure

37. • Environment Health
Script
• :
Ahmed Jassat
Medscheme Oracle E-Business
DBA
ICT Infrastructure / Operations

38. Summary of Environment

39. Thank You
Ahmed Jassat
APPS DBA
ahmedj@heliosits.com
076 44 11 873