Oracle Exadata is a database appliance with support for both OLTP and OLAP database systems.
It was initially designed in collaboration between Oracle Corporation and Hewlett Packard.
Oracle designed the database, operating system, and storage software whereas HP designed the
hardware for it.
After Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems, in 2010 Oracle announced the Exadata Version
2 with improved performance and Sun storage systems.
History Exadata was announced by Larry Ellison at
the 2009 Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco for immediate delivery.
The main headline was that Oracle was entering the hardware business with a pre-built database
machine, engineered by Oracle.
The hardware at this time was manufactured, delivered and supported by HP.
Since the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle circa January 2010, Exadata used
Sun-based hardware.
In August 2011, Oracle announced that Exadata database machines would be orderable with
Solaris 11 Express.
Technical details
Database servers X3-2 A third generation was announced in 2012.
Each Database Server with 2 x Eight-Core Intel Xeon E5-2690 Processors
128 GB Memory Disk Controller HBA with 512MB Battery Backed
Write Cache 4 x 300 GB 10,000 RPM Disks
2 x QDR Ports 4 x 1/10 Gb Ethernet Ports
2 x 10 Gb Ethernet Ports 1 x ILOM Ethernet Port
2 x Redundant Hot-Swappable Power Supplies The Exadata X3-2 comes in 4 different sizes
Eighth Rack - 2 Database Servers, 3 Storage Servers
Quarter Rack - 2 Database Servers, 3 Storage Servers
Half Rack - 4 Database Servers, 7 Storage Servers
Full Rack - 8 Database Servers, 14 Storage Servers
Database servers X3-8 2 Servers, each with
8 x Ten-Core Intel Xeon E7-8870 Processors 2 TB Memory
Disk Controller HBA with 512MB Battery Backed Write Cache
8 x 300 GB 10,000 RPM Disks 8 x InfiniBand QDR Ports
8 x 10 Gb Ethernet Ports based on the Intel 82599 10GbE Controller
8 x 1 Gb Ethernet Ports 1 x ILOM Ethernet Port
4 x Redundant Hot-Swappable Power Supplies Storage Servers X3-2
Each Storage Server has Processors: 2 x Six-Core Intel Xeon E5-2630L
Processors Exadata Smart Flash: Cache 1.6 TB
System Memory: 64 GB Disk Controller: Disk Controller HBA with
512MB Battery Backed Write Cache InfiniBand Connectivity: Dual-Port QDR InfiniBand
Host Channel Adapter Power Supplies: Dual-redundant, hot-swappable
power supply Disk Drives:
12 x 600 GB 15,000 RPM High Performance or 12 x 3 TB 7,200 RPM High Capacity
For raw disk capacity, 1 GB = 1 billion bytes.
Actual formatted capacity is less.
Remote Management: Integrated Lights Out Manager Ethernet port
Database servers X2-2 Sun Fire X4170 M2
2 × Six-Core Intel Xeon X5675 Processors 96 GB Memory
Disk Controller HBA with 512MB Battery Backed Write Cache
4 × 300 GB 10,000 RPM SAS Disks 2 × QDR Ports
2 × 10 Gb Ethernet Ports based on the Intel 82599 10GbE Controller
4 × 1 Gb Ethernet Ports 1 × ILOM Ethernet Port
2 × Redundant Hot-Swappable Power Supplies 3 × 36 port QDR InfiniBand Switches
Database servers X2-8 Sun Fire X4800
8 × Ten-Core Intel Xeon E7-8870 Processors 2 TB Memory.
Disk Controller HBA with 512MB Battery Backed Write Cache.
8 × 300 GB 10,000 RPM SAS Disks 8 × QDR Ports
8 × 10 Gb Ethernet Ports based on the Intel 82599 10GbE Controller
8 × 1 Gb Ethernet Ports 1 × ILOM Ethernet Port
4 × Redundant Hot-Swappable Power Supplies 3 × 36 port QDR InfiniBand Switches
Storage Servers X2-2 2 × Six-Core Intel Xeon L5640 Processors
Exadata Smart Flash Cache 384 GB System Memory 24 GB
Disk Controller HBA with 512MB Battery Backed Write Cache
InfiniBand Connectivity Dual-Port QDR InfiniBand Host Channel Adapter
Power Supplies Dual-redundant, hot-swappable power supply
Remote Management Sun Embedded Integrated Lights Out Manager
Disk Drives 12 × 600 GB 15,000 RPM High Performance SAS or
12 × 3 TB 7,200 RPM High Capacity SAS Integrated Lights Out Manager Ethernet port
There was also an expansion rack.
Software Software caches database objects in flash
memory, replacing slow, mechanical I/O operations to disk with rapid flash memory operations.
Software also provides logging feature to speed database log I/O. Exadata storage cells
determine which rows contain values that are being queried.
Smart Scan only returns blocks that are relevant to the compute nodes.
Storage cells can take over data intensive processing from compute nodes.
Storage cells keep track on maximum and minimum values stored in different areas and use those
values to determine where predicates can not exist.
This allows the storage cell to not have to read the area at all thus saving time and
processing cycles.
InfiniBand switches The 2010 version of the product used Sun Microsystems
datacenter InfiniBand switches with 36 ports.
Source Oracle Corporation See also
Oracle Exalogic
References
External links Oracle Exadata Database Machine
Oracle & Sun Unveil Exadata Version 2 on YouTube - Larry Ellison's Exadata V2 announcement
History of Exadata