In the digitally transformed economy, even the briefest instance of data loss can disrupt operations, damage customer trust, and expose organisations to risks ranging from regulatory penalties to costly downtime. For those running mission-critical workloads on Oracle databases, the stakes are particularly high.
Ransomware threats continue to intensify, while compliance standards become increasingly demanding, making data loss or outages unthinkable. Robust, efficient, and scalable data protection is now essential to avoid disruption or even prosecution.
Oracle’s Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance (ZDLRA) is a purpose-built solution designed to address these challenges, helping CTOs strengthen their data resilience strategies.
Real-time protection for Modern Threats
The ZDLRA sets itself apart from traditional backup solutions through its ability to provide continuous data protection, delivering recovery point objectives (RPOs) that are measured in seconds rather than hours or days. Conventional systems risk losing hours of business transactions, but the ZDLRA streams Oracle database redo data in real time, enabling recovery right up to the very last committed transaction. Everything is captured and available for rollback in the event of outages or cyber-attacks.
Of equal importance is the ZDLRA’s strong defence against modern threats such as ransomware. Backups stored on the appliance are immutable and encrypted to prevent interference. The system then automatically validates backups for integrity before storage. Advanced anomaly detection provides another line of defence by alerting administrators to suspicious activity before it can escalate and spread.
Operational efficiency at enterprise scale
By sending only changed database blocks to the appliance, the ZDLRA is highly efficient, minimising impact on network bandwidth and production environments. This approach shortens backup windows and frees up valuable CPU and storage resources for business-critical activities (and cloud resource cost reductions where appropriate).
The ZDLRA handles massive datasets, scaling from 2 petabytes to well over 280 petabytes. With recovery throughputs exceeding 35 terabytes per hour, the appliance is suitable for the largest enterprise environments.
Automation further enhances these operational benefits. Oracle estimates that its automation can reduce database administration workloads related to backup management by up to 80%. Tasks such as configuration, scheduling, and validation are streamlined and centrally managed, reducing the risk of human error and allowing IT teams to focus on higher-value work.
Tangible cost and compliance benefits
Beyond technical advantages, the ZDLRA offers significant cost efficiencies. Its “incremental-forever” backup model eliminates the need for frequent, resource-intensive full backups, reducing both storage requirements and operating costs. Built-in deduplication and database-aware compression optimise storage utilisation, lowering the total cost of ownership by up to 62% compared to competitor solutions.
These efficiencies are complemented by improved compliance. With immutable, continuously validated backups and granular recovery, your organisation can meet strict regulatory requirements and respond confidently to audit requests.
A real-world example: Protecting financial transactions
Consider GCB Bank, a major financial institution grappling with the increasing risks of data loss and ransomware across a complex, high-volume Oracle landscape. Before adopting ZDLRA, backups were slow, fragile, and expensive. By moving to ZDLRA, the bank achieved sub-second recovery points, significantly reduced backup and restoration times, and ensured that backups could not be altered or deleted by malicious attackers or ransomware.
These improvements empowered GCB to resist extortion, confident in the knowledge that critical transactions could be restored instantly and precisely. As Abel Daitey, CIO of GCB Bank PLC, said: “Our data is protected in real time, backups are continuously validated, and we can quickly restore to any point in time with zero data loss. This gives us the resilience to say no to hackers—I’m pretty happy with that device.”
A (very) sensible backup investment
For CTOs responsible for mission-critical Oracle database environments, the Oracle Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance delivers real-time data protection, ransomware resilience, operational efficiency, and cost savings. As your organisation faces an evolving threat landscape and more complex compliance demands, ZDLRA provides a compelling and future-ready foundation for enterprise data protection and recovery.
If you would like to learn more about Oracle’s Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance and its role in your resilience strategy, please don’t hesitate to get get in touch.