The MAA Gold reference architecture is well suited for service level requirements that cannot tolerate long periods of downtime and data loss. This set of architecture patterns provides high availability and comprehensive data protection for all types of unplanned outages, including data corruptions, database failures, and site outages. Mission critical production applications that require quick recovery time and zero or minimal data loss for all database and system outages and planned maintenance activities will benefit from the capabilities included in the Gold reference architecture.
The Gold MAA reference architecture, building on the Silver reference architecture, provides you with four architecture patterns using Oracle Active Data Guard (or Oracle Data Guard). While Active Data Guard provides better RTO and protection overall, both Active Data Guard and Data Guard are viable for MAA Gold.
The architecture patterns vary from a single remote active standby with Fast Start Failover and HA Observer, to multiple standby database configurations including standby reader farms, and finally a far sync (across regions) zero data loss standby configuration.
As shown in the table below, the MAA Gold level of service reduces failover and switchover times from hours to seconds, and lets you do major database upgrades with minimal interruptions.
| Unplanned Outage | RTO/RPO Service Level Objectives1 |
|---|---|
| Recoverable node or instance failure | Single digit seconds2 |
| Disasters: corruptions and site failures | Seconds to 2 minutes RPO zero or seconds |
| Planned Maintenance | |
| Software/hardware updates | Zero2 |
| Major database upgrade | Less than 30 seconds |
1 RPO is zero unless explicitly specified
2 To achieve zero downtime or lowest impact for online processing, apply MAA application checklist best practices. For long running transactions such as batch operations, it's best to defer outside the planned maintenance window.
Click on the graphic above for details about each architecture pattern for MAA Gold.
Learn more about Oracle MAA blueprints for reduced planned and unplanned downtime for Oracle Database on-premises, on Exadata Database Machine, and on Oracle Cloud.