Case Study: EMC Tames Oracle ERP Data Growth

Like most large organizations, EMC struggles with the performance and manageability of mission-critical applications because of increased data volume and user numbers. In the past, EMC added more computing resources and storage to address major performance issues. However, for its large Oracle enterprise resource planning (ERP) multiterabyte database, EMC took the unconventional approach of using an archiving solution to deal with reoccurring performance issues. EMC used Informatica Data Archive to reduce the size of its Oracle ERP database by two-thirds. In the process, EMC improved performance and manageability while deferring a costly hardware upgrade. Database administrators should look at database archiving as a tactic for improving application performance and manageability, especially for large multiterabyte-sized databases. Data archiving can also help improve security and meet regulatory compliance requirements, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, by storing inactive but sensitive data for long-term retention.