Environment operations

Add an environment

Use this procedure to add a source, staging, or target environment in DCT before linking a dSource or provisioning a VDB.

1. In DCT, navigate to Home > Infrastructure Connections.

2. Click + Infrastructure Connections.

3. In the Create Infrastructure Connection dialog:

   1. Provide a Connection Name and an associated Continuous Data engine.

   2. Select the type of Host OS and whether it’s a Standalone or Cluster Server Type. Click Next.

4. Provide the connection details:

   1. For a standalone host, enter the Host IP address.

   2. For clustered environments, enter the Node address and Cluster Home.

5. Enter the SSH port. The default value is 22.

6. Enter connection credentials. Select the desired Login Type.

   1. Username and Password - enter the OS username and password.

   2. Username and Public Key - enter the OS username.

   3. Password Vault from an existing Enterprise Password Vault

      Public Key Authentication should be used if you want to use public-key encryption for logging into your Unix-based environment. See below for additional details.

7. Enter a Toolkit path. The toolkit directory stores scripts used for CD engine operations, and should have a persistent working directory rather than a temporary one. The toolkit directory will have a separate subdirectory for each database instance. The toolkit path must have 0770 permissions and at least 345MB of free space.

8. Fill in any Advanced operations, such as SAP ASE discovery, NFS Addresses, or DSP options.

9. Click Next, review your configuration, and then select Submit.

For an overview of the Infrastructure Connections list and details page, see Infrastructure Connections. For additional wizard context, see Create an infrastructure connection.

Validate a Public Key

Configure a Private/Public Key Pair, for your Unix-based host.

1. Select the Username and Public Key option while creating an environment, and select View Public Key.

2. Run chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys to allow only the file's owner to read and write to it (make sure the file is owned by the user).

3. Run chmod 755 ~ to restrict access to the user's home directory so no other user may write to it.

4. Run chmod 700 ~/.ssh so that others cannot write to it. The ~/.ssh directory cannot be writable by group or other users. Otherwise, authentication will fail.

5. The public key needs to be added only once per user and per environment.

Refresh an environment

After you make changes to an environment that you have already set up in DCT, such as installing a new database home, creating a new database, or adding a new listener, the environment may need to be refreshed to reflect these changes.

During a full environment discovery or environment refresh, the connected CD engine pushes a new copy of the toolkit to each staging and target environment and replaces the old toolkit with the newer one. The toolkit includes:

• A Java Runtime Environment (JRE)

• Delphix jar files

• The HostChecker utility

• Scripts for managing the environment and/or VDBs

• Delphix Connector log files

When you refresh the environment, it will push the toolkit back to the directory identified as the Toolkit Path for the given environment. Once this completes, the dSource can be brought back online.

The connected CD engine then executes some of these scripts to discover information about the objects in your environment (where the databases are installed, the database names, information required to connect to these databases, etc.). In some environments (Windows in particular), the scripts are customized to fit your environment.

For a Unix/Linux environment, the Refresh action offers two modes:

• Full Refresh — Refreshes the whole environment, including hosts, client toolkits, all database installations, and their configurations. Enabled dSources may be temporarily disabled while the refresh runs. Oracle and plugin-based dSources are disabled; ASE and SQL Server dSources are not.

• Lightweight Discovery — Discovers only newly added, changed, or upgraded Oracle database installations and source configurations, and deletes stale Oracle installations and configurations that no longer exist on the host and have no attached sources. It does not re-push the toolkit or disable existing dSources.

Data Control Tower 2026.5.0 introduces Lightweight Discovery, an on-demand operation that discovers new, changed, or upgraded Oracle homes and new databases (CDBs, PDBs, and single-instance or RAC source configurations) on an already-configured Oracle environment without running a full environment refresh.

Unlike a full environment refresh — which re-pushes the toolkit, rediscovers the entire environment, and temporarily disables all enabled dSources while it runs — Lightweight Discovery only reconciles Oracle installations and source configurations against what is currently on the host, and it leaves your running dSources and VDBs untouched. New objects are created, changed or upgraded objects are updated, and stale objects with no attached sources are deleted.

Data Control Tower 2026.5.0 introduces Lightweight Discovery, an on-demand operation that discovers new, changed, or upgraded Oracle homes and new databases (CDBs, PDBs, and single-instance or RAC source configurations) on an already-configured Oracle environment without running a full environment refresh.

Unlike a full environment refresh — which re-pushes the toolkit, rediscovers the entire environment, and temporarily disables all enabled dSources while it runs — Lightweight Discovery only reconciles Oracle installations and source configurations against what is currently on the host, and it leaves your running dSources and VDBs untouched. New objects are created, changed or upgraded objects are updated, and stale objects with no attached sources are deleted.

Lightweight Discovery is supported for Oracle data sources in Unix/Linux standalone hosts and Oracle RAC clusters. It is supported on DCT engines running version 2026.5.0 or later. It is available from Data Control Tower through the Refresh Environment dialog and through the REST API. Any user with the ENVIRONMENT_REFRESH permission on the target environment can run it; no new permission is required. For non-Unix/Linux environments, such as Windows or SQL Server environments, only Full Refresh is available.

Refresh an environment from the DCT UI

1. Navigate to Home > Data Infrastructure.

2. Select the target environment from the Data Infrastructure panel.

3. Click the Actions drop-down and select Refresh.

4. In the Refresh Environment dialog, under Choose how to refresh this environment, select Full Refresh or Lightweight Discovery.

5. Click Refresh.

DCT starts the selected operation and reports whether it succeeds or fails. When Lightweight Discovery is selected, only new, changed, upgraded, and stale Oracle installations and configurations are reconciled; running dSources are not disabled.

For a Unix/Linux environment, the Refresh Environment dialog presents both modes, with Full Refresh selected by default. For a non-Unix/Linux environment, the mode choice is not offered; selecting Refresh opens the standard confirmation dialog and performs a full refresh.

Refresh an environment with the DCT API

Lightweight Discovery is also exposed through the DCT REST API:

POST /environments/{environmentId}/lightweight-discover

This starts an asynchronous job that performs Lightweight Discovery on the specified environment. The existing full-refresh endpoint, POST /environments/{environmentId}/refresh, is unchanged.

Lightweight Discovery notes and limitations

• Lightweight Discovery does not re-push the toolkit, refresh source runtime state, rotate stunnel certificates, or disable existing dSources.

• As with a full refresh, in-progress VDB operations on the environment block the operation.

• After an in-place Oracle home upgrade, use Lightweight Discovery rather than Full Refresh so the version change is detected and affected sources are refreshed.

• Lightweight Discovery automatically upgrades affected sources after an out-of-place Oracle home upgrade. When a database moves to a new Oracle home, the affected source is re-pointed to the new home and upgraded automatically, and the connection pool is purged.

• The automatic source upgrade covers single-instance and RAC linked dSources, virtual database (VDB) sources, and PDBs whose parent CDB was moved or upgraded. It does not cover a linked PDB that is individually moved into a CDB on a different Oracle home. For that case, detach and re-link the PDB.

Add an Installation

While adding an environment to DCT, all database installation homes (or repositories) on it are automatically discovered. However, if a database installation home is not automatically discovered, you can add it manually to the environment. This feature may vary for different connectors, for workflow related information, refer to the connector specific documentation.

Below is an example of how to add a dataset home for Oracle.

1. In DCT, navigate to Home > Infrastructure Connections.

2. Select the appropriate environment and navigate to its Data tab.

3. Click + Installation to initiate a new configuration.

4. In the Add Installation area, fill in the necessary details, such as Data Type, Installation Path, and Version.

5. Once created, you can select +dSource to create a dSource.

Add a database

An environment contains installations, that are database installations in the environment. Each environment may have any number of installations associated with it.

A database object defines the configuration of the dSource, sometimes called a Source Config or Instance, and is required to create a dSource. You can create any number of database objects using an installation, which represents known database instances. Databases only need to be identified on source or staging environments, not target environments.

For Oracle, SQL Server, and some other connectors, known databases are automatically added during discovery. However, not all connectors support automatic database discovery, such as PostgreSQL, or databases can be missed by the discovery feature. In these scenarios, you must create the database manually.

Follow the steps below to create a database, or Source Config, on a source or staging environment:

1. In DCT, navigate to Data > Data Infrastructure > Environments.

2. Select one of the configured source or staging environments.

3. Select the Databases tab.

4. Select one of the Dataset Home installations, in some connectors there will be no installation but a placeholder for installation.

5. Select the Add Database plus (+) button to specify the database configuration. Input fields for database installation may vary from connector to connector. To know about the exact input fields, you can refer to the connector specific documentation.

Delete an environment

Deleting an environment in DCT will remove all data and configurations related to that environment. This action only affects the environment metadata stored in DCT and the connected CD engine. It will not affect your database installations on the hosts or clusters that the environment is referencing.

Before deleting an environment, you must first delete all dependencies, such as dSources and virtual databases (VDBs).

1. In DCT, navigate to Home > Infrastructure Connections.

2. In the panel, select the environment you want to delete.

3. Click the Actions (...) menu and select Delete.

4. In the Delete Environment confirmation dialog, click Delete.