1

Do we need an Oracle database administrator (DBA) to clone or refresh a database with DbClone? 

Answer:
No! Oracle database administration (DBA) skills or expertise is not required to use DbClone. DbClone is a self-service package designed for Oracle developer or users familiar with Oracle database  concepts. Training is required to use the advanced features of DbClone. 

2

How much DBA effort or involvement is needed for using  DBclone?

Answer:
No! DBA's involvement is not necessary after the installation and setup of DbClone. It helps Oracle DBA's to provide access and privileges to Oracle users to clone Oracle databases themselves. It frees DBA from cloning tasks and helps in managing and monitoring several user cloning process  simultaneously.

3

What RDBMS databases DbClone can clone?

Answer:
Currently DbClone supports the cloning of Oracle only. It can clone any Oracle Database Version: 7.3.4, 8.1.6, 8.1.7 and higher including Oracle Version: 9.2.0.

4

Can users access source databases while cloning?

Answer:
Yes! If the source database is running in an archive log mode.

Access to source database  depends on the archive mode of the source database , if the source database is in non-archive mode, then it cannot be accessed by users while cloning. In this case the users will have to wait until the Cloning is completed. 

5

Can user clone multiple databases with DbClone at the same time? 

Answer:
DbClone  can  clone and monitor multiple Oracle Database versions at the same time as long as there are no source and target database conflicts.

6

How much time does DbClone save over manual process using custom developed scripts?

Answer:
The saving in time to clone by using DbClone depends on the size and the internal complexity of the Oracle databases. There is no need to write any program or custom scripts if you use DbClone. Therefore 100% of the time spent in development testing and deployment of the manual scripts is saved. DbClone also uses other optimized process for the fastest and most efficient cloning.  

 7

How much time DbClone takes to clone an Oracle database?

Answer:
Depends on the size of database, the network speed, the speed of the disk storage, and the processing power of the target host systems.

An example of current benchmark. It took 10 minutes and 40 seconds for cloning a 2GB database on a SUN ULTRA 5 server with 2 X 300MHz processor and 512MB RAM, running 3  Oracle instances concurrently.  

8

Can DbClone clone existing Oracle  version to any Oracle higher version?

Answer:
Yes! DbClone has features and capabilities to migrate Oracle to higher versions.  Oracle technology does not support direct cloning to a lower  oracle version.

9

Can I clone Oracle database across different platforms?

Answer:
Yes. DbClone provides the capability and features to directly migrate Oracle databases between different Unix Operating systems and multi vendor Unix servers . Currently the migration can be done between Oracle Sun and HP.

10

How automated is the DbClone operating process?

Answer:
The whole process is fully automated and can be carried out by any user. It takes less than ten (10) mouse clicks to start and complete a cloning process, if the database is already setup for operation.