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FlexPod XCS vs Oracle Exadata comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

FlexPod XCS
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (3rd)
Oracle Exadata
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
129
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

FlexPod XCS and Oracle Exadata aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. FlexPod XCS is designed for Converged Infrastructure and holds a mindshare of 11.7%, up 9.6% compared to last year.
Oracle Exadata, on the other hand, focuses on Data Warehouse, holds 13.1% mindshare, down 18.6% since last year.
Converged Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
FlexPod XCS11.7%
HPE ConvergedSystem16.2%
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance12.8%
Other59.3%
Converged Infrastructure
Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle Exadata13.1%
Snowflake11.6%
Teradata11.1%
Other64.2%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Enforces standardized setup procedures following Certified Validated Design (CVD) guidelines and offers greater flexibility and control over the system compared to traditional systems
The GUI setup follows the right setup, meaning we have to follow the CVDi.e. Certified Validated Design. Everything is clear, because you can build CI yourself, but without rules, it can be messy. With FlexPod, there are rules to follow, making it more standardized. This helps with troubleshooting and compatibility assessments, simplifying troubleshooting significantly. We also use FlexPod pre-validated architectures to validate the design. It is very, very important to us because we had a bad case in 2015 where separate items integrated poorly due to no version or firmware compatibility certification. Troubleshooting became a nightmare. So, standards are crucial for us, and everything entering production should be verified or at least documented for certification.
Mladen Vidic - PeerSpot reviewer
High availability and cluster support enhance daily operations and transaction processing.
We use Oracle Exadata for several enterprise databases that accommodate all-day operations on two Exadatas. I can't disclose the specific use of these databases, but they handle heavy connections and a large number of transactions. This environment is set up to process requests from a transaction…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It has never fallen out from under us when we were trying to do a critical push."
"That it works. That it does exactly what it says on the tin."
"It has simplified our support."
"The fact that it can run the entire stack in terms of protocols. The integration for most of our customers is VMware; the full-stack integration. Also, the ability to do rapid cloning."
"FlexPod has affected the workload of our network admin team awesomely. We have fewer employees. It's good."
"We enjoy the standardization and having things consistent across the whole data center sphere."
"The solution is innovative when it comes to compute storage and networking. Each environment has knowledge of another in a FlexPod environment. This would be difficult to operate separately."
"FlexPod has improved our company as far as ease of management, stability, and redundancy."
"The performance on the databases is good."
"Oracle is easy to use for peripheral things, such as the data vault and the data firewall, data sync, and partitions. These are the features that give an edge to other databases."
"I am satisfied with its functionalities and performance."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Complete management occurs from one single address instead of different servers."
"It offers a significant advantage for accommodating a large number of users."
"Exadata is also a very stable environment. Their Smart Scan feature is great for every banking environment and financial institutions willing to implement it."
"The technical support team are real professionals. I admire their technical skills and supports. Their supports are really admirable."
 

Cons

"The initial setup was complex. UCS is not the easiest thing to configure from the ground up. The networking pieces can get confusing, especially when you are talking about virtual segmentation. It is not as easy as other things now on the market, such as hyperconverged."
"There were several different management consoles that we had to deal with: UCS, VMware, and separate ESXi installations. Maybe one interface council where we could manage everything from might be a little easier."
"Since 2018 or 2019, maybe due to COVID and the chipsets, my DIMMs are dying left and right."
"One touch upgrades would be nice."
"They need to improve the user interface to make it easier to work in this environment. The older version is poor."
"NetApp has some tools that you can purchase to do performance management, or you can go with another vendor and buy a product which does the same thing. It would be nice if there was more of these features with the product, not add-ons."
"I would think more cloud integration, a lot more flexibility with adapting to different things."
"With the UCS X-Series, I would like to see the fabric interconnects in the chassis. Instead of hanging out so the chassis is 7U, you are increasing your footprint to 9U with the fabric enhancer, where some of the competing solutions are 7U and have collapsed that network fabric into the chassis. This is another thing that I would like to see from Cisco, though not really on the NetApp side since that is pretty solid."
"The handling of temp space has room for improvement."
"The customization can sometimes be difficult to achieve."
"There is one aspect to Exadata that I dislike, and that's the inconsistency with other databases. When you try to get Exadata to function with another type of database like SQL, or others, there should be reliable and consistent operation. When this is improved on, we should start to see more applications growing the market."
"The solution lacks a visualized console."
"We had issues with system restoration."
"There is a feature for security, but it is not included in the first purchase of this solution. That means if you need to increase the security, you need to buy the security feature which doesn't come by default on these solutions."
"The price is also higher than I would prefer."
"I believe Oracle must improve its procedure to support the clients. The customer Ready Service must provide more use cases and benchmarks of their infrastructure to support client design decisions. Oracle must audit their partners regularly to guarantee they provide quality service even after been passed on partnership examination."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As a startup, for the amount of budget we have and the amount we spend, we are getting what we expected."
"In terms of the cost, the last bill I saw was about $3.5 million, from the latest contract. That might have been for a five-year contract."
"Make sure you are buying for performance, not just capacity."
"Overall, the solution works pretty well. The biggest complaint I have from customers is the cost."
"We have saved time with Snapshots, SnapMirrors, and backup and DR capabilities versus other platforms that we have looked at in the past."
"The pricing and licensing are quite expensive. However, compared to other solutions, it is okay."
"The investment has been great. We put our money into it and it has given us something that we have been able to rely on for years."
"I have saved time on new service deployments. I've done deployments in under a week, and if it's a cloud-based deployment, it's even faster."
"There is an annual license to use this solution. The solution is expensive."
"The solution’s cost is a little bit more than the traditional databases."
"All things considered, the price of this product is fairly high, as is always the case with Oracle."
"The pricing of Oracle Exadata is too high."
"The price of Oracle Exadata is expensive. It is not competitive with other solutions some of the times."
"In the sizing phase, you can also decide whether to license all cores, or reduce the number cores using capacity-on-demand features of Exadata, as well. This has a direct impact on licensing."
"The licensing can be a bit expensive because you need to have certain tools enabled that require them."
"We pay for an annual license and it is expensive."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
22%
Performing Arts
10%
Educational Organization
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise182
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise86
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FlexPod?
The system is designed for easy scaling. Because we define everything clearly. So when we plug the system in, we apply the profile, and it scales easily.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FlexPod?
The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers. Following XCS rules ensures a stable environment, which is crucial. For me, C...
What needs improvement with FlexPod?
FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities. More automation would be helpful. Currently, we cont...
What do you like most about Oracle Exadata?
It is the best solution for OLTP and data warehousing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata?
The cost of Oracle Exadata is substantial, particularly in terms of maintenance costs and licensing. This pricing strategy has led to strained relationships with IT companies including HP and Cisco...
What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata?
Patching Oracle Exadata can be challenging due to its numerous components including network, blade, CPU, storage, and VMs. The system's complexity extends beyond simple maintenance tasks. The perfo...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group
PayPal, EBS, Organic Food Retailer, Garmin, University of Minnesota, Major Semiconductor Company, Deutsche Bank, Starwood, Ziraat Bank, SK Telecom, and P&G.
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell Technologies and others in Converged Infrastructure. Updated: October 2025.
872,846 professionals have used our research since 2012.