Understanding Oracle GoldenGate: A Comprehensive 101 Guide

As your business grows, so does the complexity of your data ecosystem. In today’s data-driven world, managing and integrating this massive volume of data is critical yet challenging. You need a powerful tool and a solution to streamline your data management.

Oracle developed the GoldenGate to address this data management issue. Its real-time capability, high availability, and simple architecture are game-changers, allowing you to maintain data replicas across diverse environments with unparalleled speed and efficiency.

In this article, you will learn about Oracle Golden Gate’s features and product family. Let’s jump right in and discover how your data strategy can be transformed using GoldenGate.

Oracle GoldenGate: What is it?

• GoldenGate is Oracle’s software product which enables you to replicate, filter and manipulate data from one database to another database while synchronizing between heterogeneous systems in real-time.

• These replications can be between two Oracle databases, between two heterogeneous databases, or between Oracle databases and other supported heterogeneous databases like SQL Server, MySQL, or PostgreSQL.

• This software helps you to maintain data consistency across multiple databases and data environments. 

• Your transactions are done with transactional integrity and the least possible overhead on the existing infrastructure. Using this software, you can support various organizational requirements, such as high data availability, database migration, data integration, and more. 

Now that you know what Golden Gate in Oracle is, it is time to learn about its features and understand why using it is beneficial. 

Benefits of Oracle GoldenGate

 The key benefits are: 

• Real-time data movement: GoldenGate is Oracle’s solution for replicating, transforming, and integrating data in real time with near-zero downtime, reducing latency. Products such as Oracle Golden Gate Monitor and Oracle Golden Gate Studio work in real time. 
• Supports a variety of databases: Using OCI GoldenGate, you can connect numerous Oracle, non-Oracle, and open-source databases, such as Kafka, Spark, Teradata, MongoDB, and Microsoft SQL Server, across on-premise and cloud platforms.
• High performance: Connecting the OracleDB kernel with GoldenGate enables high-speed data movement. You can also monitor the real-time replication of data with live standby servers for high-performance reporting. 
• Simple architecture and easy configuration: GoldenGate supports two architectures: Classic Architecture and Microservices Architecture (only supports Oracle Database). To configure and manage your data replication, you can use the command line for Classic Architecture and an HTML user interface for Microservices Architecture.

What is Oracle GoldenGate used for?

Most of your data movement requirements are met by GoldenGate in Oracle. Your data updates or changes are extracted from source’s transaction logs using log-based change data capture (CDC) procedure and sent to the destination in real time. You can use GoldenGate for the following purposes:

• Uninterrupted operations and high availability: This means that your business should run smoothly without any interruptions. Also, the systems should be up and running always, even when something goes wrong, making them fault-tolerant. To achieve this, businesses use multiple servers, storage systems, and data centres. GoldenGate makes this process simple by transferring data across multiple servers and data centres and maintaining this environment. 
• First load and database migration: The first load is a data migration process that extracts data records from a source database and loads them onto a target database. It is performed only once. Using GoldenGate in Oracle, you can perform first load or initial load data migration without taking your system offline.
• Data integration and consolidation: This means moving and integrating your company’s data across different types of databases into a single database. This enables seamless data flow in mixed environments and facilitates comprehensive data analysis and reporting.

How to Use Oracle GoldenGate?

Golden Gate can be used for two types of architecture: 

• Classic Architecture 
• Microservices Architecture. 

These architectures can further range from topologies like simple unidirectional architecture to more complex peer-to-peer architecture. 

Classic Architecture

Classic Architecture allows you to configure and manage data replications from the command line. It supports all databases supported as per Oracle Fusion Middleware Supported System Configurations. You can use this architecture for the following purposes:

• Static extraction and loading of data records between databases.
• Data consistency between source and destination after continuous extraction and replication of transactional DML operations and DDL changes for supported databases.
• Data capture from a database and relocating that data to a file outside the database.
• Heterogeneous database source capture. 

Microservices Architecture

Microservices Architecture allows you to configure and manage data replications using an HTML user interface. It only supports Oracle database. You can use this architecture for the following purposes:

• Secure WebSocks for data streaming and completely-secure HTTPS interface for large scale and cloud deployments. 
• Simple management and controlled user access for different aspects of setup and monitoring.
• Support features like thin and browser-based clients, network security, user authorization, distributed deployments, remote administration, performance monitoring, coordination with other systems in Oracle database environment and custom embedding of GoldenGate into applications.
• Support system-managed database fragmenting to provide fine-grained, multi-master replication in which all fragments are editable and can be partially replicated to other fragments in a fragment-group.

Want to learn how to set up Golden Gate? Explore: Setting Up Orcale GoldenGate Replication

Product Family of Oracle GoldenGate

GoldenGate’s product family provides you with numerous  products, such as:

• Oracle Golden Gate Veridata: It lets you detect and fix out-of-sync data by comparing one data set to another. With support to high-volume, 24×7 heterogeneous data replication environments, downtime to compare data sets is not an option.
• Oracle Golden Gate Plug-in for EMCC: This plug-in expands Enterprise Manager Cloud Control’s capabilities and provides visual support for monitoring and controlling Oracle Golden Gate replication processes. Installing the plug-in in your Cloud Control environment allows you to interact with processes, configurations, log files, alerts, and user security.
• Oracle Golden Gate Monitor: It is a web-based, real-time monitoring system that provides a graphical overview of all your company’s Oracle GoldenGate instances and the databases connected to them. You can view statistics, targeted views, and alerts instantly. This helps you monitor performance and detect problems, such as lag or abandoned processes.
• Oracle Golden Gate for Big Data: It can write operation data from Oracle GoldenGate trail records into a variety of Big Data targets, including HDFS, HBase, Kafka, Flume, JDBC, Cassandra, and MongoDB. You can trail this data in real-time, raising the quality and timeliness of your business insights.
• Oracle Golden Gate Application Adapters: These application adapters interface with core product installations for you to import Java Message Service (JMS) data or send data as JMS files or messages. 
• Oracle Golden Gate for HP NonStop: This product allows you to extract and replicate specific data records and transactional changes across a range of heterogeneous applications and platforms, allowing you to manage business data at a transactional level. The product set makes high-availability solutions, real-time data integration, data manipulation, data replication, and transactional change data capture possible.
• Oracle Golden Gate Studio: It allows you to create and implement high-volume, real-time replication by automatically managing table and column mappings, letting you drag and drop custom mappings, creating best practice configurations from templates, and providing context-sensitive support.

Conclusion

• This article provided an overall outlook of Oracle’s Golden Gate software, and also describes how it stands out as a powerful and versatile tool and its product family for managing real-time data replication, filtration, and manipulation across diverse database environments.
• Its ability to maintain data consistency with minimal overhead and near-zero downtime makes it an invaluable tool for your business, enabling uninterrupted operations, high availability, seamless data integration, and consolidation.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1. What is Oracle GoldenGate used for?

• You can use Oracle GoldenGate to replicate, filter and transform data across different databases.

Q2. What are the advantages of Oracle GoldenGate?

• Oracle GoldenGate’s advantages include real-time data movement, support for a variety of databases, high performance, simple architecture, and easy configuration.

Q3. What are the different types of architecture in GoldenGate?

• There are two different types of architecture in GoldenGate: Classic Architecture and Microservices Architecture.
• These architectures can further be classified as unidirectional, bidirectional, peer-to-peer, broadcast, consolidation and cascading.