Oracle Exadata Reviews

Most, if not all of the time, a database workload is a disk I/O-bound, not CPU nor memory. The most time spent in a database operation is reading a data block from or writing a data block to physical disks. This is true for any type of workloads -- small or large block read and write, sequential or random access. The Exadata technology minimizes this bottleneck by utilizing

1. Oracle's proprietary intelligent storage software which understands Oracle database I/O characteristics and thus is able to minimize number of disk I/O, and
2. High-speed Infiniband network for storage network (40 Gb/sec throughput, 5 times higher than the typical fibre channel used for SAN).

There are several scenarios in which this technology can help. Most package (COTS) software are not designed, and therefore are not optimized, for a specific database platform, e.g. Oracle. Performance starts becoming a problem when the database size and workload (e.g. transaction rate) are high. Even if you, as a customer, have reached out to vendor support, chances are they are not going to customize their code just for one database platform, Oracle. They may help you to do small tuning here and there, but without optimizing the application code, the result is limited. Exadata comes as a quick fix in this situation. Oracle Exadata will sweep the problem under the carpet.

Secondly, most applications have a mixed-workload, not purely OLTP and not purely batch/reporting. Unfortunately in many aspects, database tuning for the fastest response (as in OLTP workload) and for the highest throughput (as in reporting/DSS workload) are a contradiction. Again, Oracle Exadata can be a quick fix by minimizing the number of I/O on a fast and high-throughput storage network. It helps on any kind of workloads.

With its value proposition, Exadata is being used to run mission-critical, 24x7 applications. Unfortunately, not all hardware in the Exadata rack are hot-swappable (such as memory, processor and battery maintenance in older models), and therefore business application downtime may be required for those hardware replacements.

Infiniband cabling work may need a complete downtime as well, for example, when we need to connect multiple racks.

I have been working with Exadata, since its X2 generation about five years ago. Since then, I have worked with its X3, X4 and, currently, the latest X5 generation. Each generation comes in three models based on the number of sockets in each of database server, -2 (for example X5-2) and -8 (for example X4-8). I have not had a chance to work with the X5-8 model, which was released less than five months ago. However, there is no fundamental difference from the previous generation X4-8, other than more processing power and memory due to newer hardware.

As in any technology deployment, software bugs and misconfiguration are possible. I have dealt with a few bugs and misconfigurations that have caused application downtime in the past.

We have no issues with its stability.

You should start with a small footprint (for example, a quarter-rack Exadata) and then grow to a full-rack or even multi-rack Exadata. The only challenge is that by the time you need to expand, the Exadata generation may have evolved (every one to two years, so far). You may end up with a full-rack of Exadata that contains multiple generations, each with a different CPU, memory, and disk capacity. This may not be a big problem, but you have to come up with a strategy to distribute the workload.

Oracle Exadata comes with Platinum Support, which is a premium support and includes regular (quarterly) patching/version upgrade activity and fault monitoring. I think this is a right approach by Oracle. As an engineered system, there is a lot of version compatibility between firmwares, operating systems, and softwares that must be taken care of for a patching and image upgrade. This definitely would be a huge responsibility if customers had to deal with this.

What everyone needs to understand is that Exadata is a database consolidation platform, and is not designed as a virtualization platform. Therefore, there are security considerations if you plan to use Exadata to host multiple applications that require certain levels of segregation at the network, storage, and operating system levels.

What makes Exadata different than competitors is that it is not designed only for a specific application (as in SAP HANA), and is not only for a certain type of workload (as in Teradata).

It is called an engineered system, but there are options that Oracle offers to its customers. Customers need to complete a configuration generator tool called Oracle Exadata Deployment Assistant (OEDA). Based on the selection made on the tool, configuration file is generated and this will be a 'binding contract' between customers and field engineers who will do the initial setup. The problem is that it is the customer's responsibility to make the right options and some of them are not easy to understand. I suggest the customer not to hesitate to get assistance from Oracle Pre-sales and to go through each of possible options in detail and to understand all consequences.

Initial setup is always done by an Oracle field engineer, up to creation of an empty database. Infrastructure cabling and data center power are usually done by contractors. From the support standpoint, Exadata is just the same Oracle database servers and Linux/Solaris servers.

The solution is relatively easy and fast to deploy. It typically takes less than three weeks from hardware delivery to having functional database servers with a built-in high-availability feature. Most importantly, it delivers an excellent Oracle database performance for any type of workload (OLTP or batch/OLAP). I have seen from 3x to 10x performance improvement for various workloads compared to previous versions. The reason I didn't give a perfect 10 rating is because some hardware are not hot-swappable, such as battery (for older models), memory and processor. While as a matter of fact, this is an important feature of a platform for an enterprise mission-critical application.

What often is confusing for many is the support model of Exadata. Many think Exadata is a black box or appliance that will be supported entirely by Oracle. It is not an appliance or a black box. It is just a bunch of regular Oracle database servers and Linux (or Solaris) servers as storage servers. It needs DBAs and system administrators to take care of it and work with vendor support in case of incidents or patching.

There are several features I've found valuable, including Exadata Hybrid Columnar Compression, Exadata Smart Scan Technology, and Smart Flash Cache.

We have dramatically improved performance for the batch jobs, after we moved from the traditional Oracle 11G databases to the new Exadata servers.

Performance has improved several-fold and moving (consolidating many small databases from smaller Linux/Unix servers into Exadata cluster) has resulted in lower production support cost and effort for BAU DBAs.

There were some minor problems moving databases to Exadata, but it was more a problem with the internal processes with my current employer.

We've used it since August 2015.

We've not had many issues with deployment, except for the minor issues involving moving databases.

No problems, we have not had any unplanned down-time or performance issues.

We've had no problems with scalability.

Oracle was pretty good in original install and database clusters build, and was pretty helpful in all the requests and questions we posted to them.

I would say technical support is very good. I have extensive working relationships with the Oracle consultants who were deploying the Exadata clusters at Worksafe. We have not had any really major issues with our Exadata clusters so far.

Yes, I have worked as DBAs on traditional Oracle RDBMS versions 9I, 10G and 11G. My previous employer has deployed large DW database into Exadata with great success. Also, Worksafe has decided to move/consolidate many smaller servers/databases into large Exadata clusters. My opinion is that in both cases business users are pretty happy with the database performance and stability on Exadata servers so far.

Initial set-up was a bit complex, but everything was resolved pretty quickly.

Original implementation was done by Oracle, and I would rate the consultant competence as very high.

I was not involved with pricing and licensing.

I was not involved in any before evaluation process.

Exadata is very solid and robust machine, with great performance. Highly recommended for companies (who can afford it).

The extreme performance and data compression that comes straight out of the box.

With Exadata, everything is simply better optimized, and our organization has been leveraging the fact that it can now manage larger volumes of data much more easily than it could previously. For example, we almost never hear our internal or external customers complain about performance issues these days. Performance problems were a recurring problem for us in the past.

X5 supports virtualization, but I think the performance on virtualization is not all that great. I have heard it from a customer, though I admit I haven't tested it out myself.

We have been using this for about three months.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

We find X5 to be very scalable.

We have always had excellent customer service.

It's excellent.

We were convinced that with Exadata we would be able to consolidate our databases, have a serious performance boost, and leave a smaller footprint on the Data Center.

There were some complexities because a lot of departments were involved, and there were some communication gaps, but generally speaking, it went smoothly.

It was done in-house, but with help from Oracle.

Your TCO and Operational expenses will definitely go down with Exadata.

No, we were pretty much decided on Exadata from the outset.

This product actually does what it promises to - it gives extreme performance on your data set.

The intelligent features have been built to utilize the storage layer in a much better way.

It's one of the most stable, high-performing products I've used.

More control for database admins is needed for storage indexes and pricing.

I've used it for close to five years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

It's average.

It's average.

We switched because we get better reliability and scalablity, as well as improved performance and a smaller footprint in the datacenter.

It was straightforward.

We implemented it in-house.

It's close to 40% in terms of cost saving.

Oracle's pricing and licensing is always costly.

No issues encountered.

If you are running Oracle databases, this is the best solution.

SmartScan and Cell Offloading, which can drastically reduce I/O from queries, improving response time.

My company's data warehouse was consolidated on a single database with improved capability and performance. Maintenance tasks and jobs start to execute much faster on the new environment. Now our company is acquiring a new hardware to support our SAS application.

Massive updates statements should not disable HCC.

I've used it for over two years.

When the workload increases on the cells, Cell Offloading may not happen.

No issues encountered.

8/10.

8/10.

No previous solution was used.

The setup is conducted by Oracle, which is a requirement.

We've not measured it.

It can simplify your IT environment, reducing the costs with maintenance operations if you have the Platinum offering.

We looked at Fusion I/O, but Exadata Storage was so much faster.

It really fit our mixed environment and it is totally directed to DW/DSS environment, as most of the heavy queries would be performed on the storage server.

• Exadata Storage Server software
• Smart Scan

• Sped up SQL response time
• Easy to get support from the vendor

The ASR needs to be improved.

I've used it for three years, from 2012 to 2015.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Oracle support provided the necessary information to scale the system.

It's good, 8/10.

8/10.

In the past we used traditional RAC database architecture. We switched because this type of solution has many drawbacks, and Exadata is the best system for Oracle databases.

It was straightforward using the OneCommand tool that is designed for Exadata deployment.

We used an ACS engineer (advanced customer service) and the field delivery engineer did the implementation.

It is little bit expensive compared to other solutions, but very useful. You just pay for one license which covers all the components within Exadata.

It is a new level of server designed for Oracle database software, so you cannot find any other options with Exadata storage software.

If you have OLT and are working 24/7 on an Oracle database, Exadata is the best solution for you. Before implementing this product you need to define your requirements clearly as this will help you to avoid future issues.

There are so many it’s hard to just name a few but -

• Cell off-loading
• Reliability
• ExaCheck
• InfiniBand

Many diverse applications were migrated to the Exadata platform that had either performance or stability issues. All have had very reliable and performance since.

Their hardware engineers can’t be beat. They are the best people I have ever worked with and parts are installed very quickly and efficiently. They’re very easy to work with, schedule jobs with, and get things done. Also, they are very proactive as well.

Most of my suggestions for Exadata itself have been addressed in X5. Oracle keeps improving the reliability and adding more hot swappable parts for the hardware and software.

The only improvements left are not with the product itself but with MOS support, ASR and patching. For MOS software support, there are some very talented people there, but not enough of them. They need more software engineers with in depth training on how to use the ASR system and the jump gate.

When the jump gate is updated or patched, it seems to take a bit to get things working properly again so patching and ASRs can be done. Platinum patching continues to improve but it is not a hands off solution.There is quite a bit of manual effort involved with each patch cycle to co-ordinate the patching. With some of the patching there, is downtime, and most of it is rolling but there are a few cases where you do need have downtime.

Since v1, almost six years.

Just the normal software bugs, nothing major. In fact considering the complexity, there are very few bugs at hardware/software level. The ASR system with the jump gate was more problematic than the Exadata setup.

No, very stable and reliable. On one quarter-rack we have 27 databases running, which astounds me every time I patch and do maintenance.

We have added more memory and additional storage arrays, and adding more memory is very easy, while adding a storage array takes some time, but it is not as complicated as I expected. We will be expanding our local file system soon not sure how complex this will be. Adding ZFS is fairly straightforward and has become easier since I first did it three years ago.

My hardware support is beyond compare. The MOS software support is good but there are just too few experienced people.

AIX, and we switched partly due to a hardware refresh, and partly due to performance, and the growth of some of the applications.

Documents are very clear, and there were many software and hardware engineers available to provide assistance and guidance along the way. The most difficult piece was the ASR system set up with the jump gate, password vault and set up in OEM. The other difficulty was the network, and some of that was due to my lack of experience in that area.

We had one application that went down constantly and since we moved to the Exadata there have been few issues outages and incidents.Huge performance gains as well.

Really evaluate your needs from a hardware and software end. Buy what you will need for between three and five years down the line, in terms of storage and memory. Buy products either before Oracle’s fiscal year end (May) or Open World. You can bundle all of your Oracle products into one agreement to get the best discounts. Try to get training and some consulting time into the agreement.Some companies leverage the partner or beta programs. I did one such beta test and was glad I did because I made improvements.

We had tried other storage and hardware options but nothing really got us performance we needed for some of our applications. We migrated applications from AIX to Linux VM and Exadata. The most critical or resource intensive applications go to Exadata.

There is a learning curve to this product and it is complex at the hardware, network and software levels. Train all your staff, not just the database administrations as the network and UNIX admns have to get familiar with the components. Exadata classes are available and the DBAs should know RAC and services well.

The starter databases are a template for new databases. Run ExaChks weekly, and set up OEM to monitor Exadata, but spend time to make sure you do it correctly. If you have a large Exadata foot print look at ZFS for backups and evaluate if you have the staff to support it. If not make sure you partner with the correct consultants.

Oracle does provide Platinum patching services but that has to be managed. Read about the product and really evaluate how to use it properly. Talk to other customers and join Exadata groups. Do a proof of concept, so see if there is a sandbox to try out. And probably the best hint is that MOS has an Exadata best practice guide - follow it as best you can. Granted there are some things you have to do for vendor products. But the more you can get out of these the better off you will be for patching, MOS etc.