http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/16/delphix_v3/
Looks like a very interesting product
what does it do?
Having read the article and the vendor's "how it works" page, I'm reminded of an old saying: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
This product promises storage savings of 20:1 and "time machine" rollback functionality, while allowing many different environments to be provisioned from a single virtual appliance. Putting aside the question of OE compatibility for the moment, and assuming it all works as promised, personally I still wouldn't use it. Maybe it has a use if you want to optimize your DBs for minimal storage footprint above all else, but I don't.
When performance testing code or DB changes, the last thing I want is one more magical black box that is "transparent to the application", to quote the web site. I'm not opposed to virtualization in principle but it does add another layer of complexity to tuning and troubleshooting.
The how it works page does not actually explain how it works.
There must be some impact on performance. It doesn't say whether that is positive or negative.
The diagram shows all the production data and backups of it going into the same box. What if the computer room is flooded?
I expect that tech support will soon get a query from someone who will ask if we support it.