My product uses oracle 9 database in its backend. every week the new release of the product is launched which will want to fire some DML, DDL queries to the database.

I usually test the product release in a dummy database before applying it in the main database.

I create a database dump using exp command, then import them into dummy database using imp. then i test the product in the dummy database and checks if there are any errors.

This exp and imp takes about 3 hours to complete. Is there any alternative as : instant snapshot of the live database (which will be independent of the live one)?

or is there any option to keep dummydatabase in sync with the originl database always. Yhis can be done by making the product firing DML&DDL queries to both the databases.. but this will be a HUGE performance problem.. how can i overcome this?