1.2.10 Clones

An Exascale clone is a thinly-provisioned point-in-time copy of a file that is readable and writable. The source file for a clone can be a regular file, a snapshot, or another clone. Exascale uses redirect-on-write techniques to create and maintain clones very quickly and space-efficiently.

The clone creation process can work on an individual file or a groups of files. All clones created in the same operation are point-in-time consistent, and all files in a clone operation must be in the same vault.

A clone inherits the ACL and file storage attribute settings from the original file. After creation, you can modify the clone ACL and any modifiable attributes independently from the original file. You can also modify, or even delete, the original file without affecting the clone.

Typically, you will automatically use Exascale clones through the Oracle Database pluggable database (PDB) snapshot and cloning capabilities. For example, the Oracle Database CREATE PLUGGABLE DATABASE ... FROM ... command internally uses Exascale clones when the FROM database is on Exascale.

You can also use the ESCLI clonefile command to manually create clones, and you can use lssnapshots to view the association between clones and their sources.