Oracle Exadata Reviews

For me, the most valuable feature is the fact that it’s an integrated system of software and hardware together.

We see cost saving due to the reduced footprint in the data center and improved performance.

There has been great improvement from the X2 to the X6 versions. There is a lot of improvement every time. CPU power is always doubled every time and memory power is doubled, so they are on the right track.

Monitoring might be a good option for improvement.

The solution is very stable.

We have had no issues with scalability.

We have opened tickets with Oracle technical support and so far, no problems.

We looked at a custom-built solution.

Engage me.

The scale of the product is the most valuable feature. We use it for data warehouse and for that, we need to process a whole bunch of data faster. That is one of the features that we use this product most.

We use it for bringing data from all the different systems into it and then process it there. It is relatively faster. I always want the fastest speed, but despite all the claims made, it is fast. This product meets our scale and volume requirements.

It has enabled us to implement business intelligence. That is the most important function that we are using it for. It has helped us line-up. Earlier, we used to take close to 24 hours in some cases. Now, it's a matter of a couple of hours.

They can make it faster and more scalable. Currently, it is not. Actually, we carried out a benchmark against another company's product. Oracle took about 14 hours and that company's product took only thirty minutes. It is like a day and night difference.

It's pretty stable.

This product does not scale like we want it to.

There is another company that we use for this purpose and it does a much better job.

It's pretty good. I don't have any problems in that area.

We were not using any other solution prior to this. The reason why we chose this product is because we had already invested in Oracle and they had this to offer, so we continued with it.

If we needed to use it for batch requirements like before, it is still one of the best solutions. But, right now with the needs that we have, it isn't enough. If you are looking for batch processing, this solution is the way to go. However, if you are looking to do what we do, which not many companies do, then it is not suitable. We are into the internet business and we process trillions of records in a day all over the world. So, probably it is not for us. But for most of the companies, it is suitable. In my previous company, we had this solution.

Actually, the product rating all depends on the timing. Initially when it was bought, at the time, there was no other solution like this. At that time, I would have rated it higher. However, with our current requirements we need to be able to process billions of records in almost real-time, which this database doesn't meet.

Oracle products are pretty stable. They are leaders in database. As we looked into data warehouse products, they are the natural choice. We did not want to bring something new.

The number one feature is the speed; it's InfiniBand. We're serving almost 3.2 million people; it's an eligibility system. We add on 80 TB of data that needs to be churned and processed. Previously, we used Sun Solaris, and then we moved to a Windows platform. It was really bad. We started the load on Tuesday, and sometime around noon on Wednesday it finished. Sometimes, it would crash. Right now, it all finishes within 4.5-5 hours. If it starts at 6 o’clock, it’s done by 9 o’clock. That is one big advantage we see.

The standard Oracle things that we have, such as compression, are also valuable.
Now, all of our development to pre-production – everything – is in one single rack, which is easier for us to do. Production is on another full rack. That's what we use it for.

Pretty much whatever we need from the database side, it is there. There are specific things from the application side. I do not have a list; they do have a list of what you can't see from the database side. Pretty much what we are looking for is part of the 12c that is coming out. Most developers are used to Microsoft .NET and SQL Server. We are all cutting out Oracle, so there is a shift within the developer's mind; how am I going to use it; starting from the modeling to how to use it; key items; for example, I need to have a temporary table to create a gdd; there's an identity column in SQL that automatically fills in, and it used to have triggers.

The 12c is coming. There are some good features coming that I'm looking for. At a conference earlier this year, I was part of the session on what is new in 12c. I'm really excited about that.

We're doing real-time analytics, so one other thing is whether NoSQL is the best fit or not. We need to evaluate that, which we have not done yet. Pretty much, we are thinking that we have Exadata, so we want to use that product.

I have been using it for 3.5-4 years.

It is absolutely a stable solution. After we moved to Exadata, the stability has been good. Number one is, we used to go through Microsoft patching every month. With Exadata and Linux, we only have to do the firmware once per quarter. We try to coordinate that with quarterly Oracle patches. It isn’t really required; we only do it because we are behind two firewalls. We don't have to apply all the patches.

It is absolutely scalable. We have five enterprise applications of our own. They're all public-facing systems. Going back to the performance, on any given day, anywhere between 5,000-8,000 internal people use it, and we do have a public-facing system. People apply for benefits, and it's entirely public, so they can use it. Compared to our previous system, if you look at the performance metrics, some of them show almost 30-40% improvement. Some of the batches are almost 70% improvement.

If you look at the backend side – logical export backups, RMANs, and disaster recovery; all of those things – there is a tremendous increase.

Technical support is pretty good. There are certain areas specific to the enterprise application where we might not be getting Oracle support. But for Oracle products, it is pretty good.

We brought Oracle in to set it up, so it still is with Oracle. We didn't go through the entire setup process because Oracle was part of it. Oracle itself did it, so it was pretty easy for us. Again, one good thing is, we don't have to really worry about the patching, OS levels, and other stuff. It is pretty easy for us.

There are still a few issues that we are working on, but from a performance point of view, ease of use, scalability and reliability, plus we took a performance option for the storage – we were at capacity, so now we are good with the capacity, too – overall, I feel like everybody is happy with the product.

When I am looking at vendors like Oracle, the primary criteria will be the support. When you go through an issue, we need an immediate solution; it’s a 24/7 application. We don't anticipate anything. For example, something like, when we were going through a patching, and suddenly I found an issue. I didn’t see it in my lower environments, and now my production is impacted. We created a severity one ticket. How soon? And can I trust it? That's number one.

There may be some custom solutions we may be looking at, but it's not part of the product. Depending on what type of solution it is, we might need additional support and also training. I think Oracle is growing. I've been using Oracle since 1991, so I know how much it grew outside the database. Training is one of the biggest issues that we are having. We moved from a Windows platform to a Linux platform. Also, how to manage the entire thing; Enterprise Manager completely changed. One is self-learning, another one is vendor-provided, low-cost training. Those are the things we are looking for.

On top of that, you can say there are certain things that can benefit us; there is a new release coming out. If they can provide another training session, like, "Hey, this worried us, and here are the documents." Something like that would really help our DBAs to be at the cutting edge, rather than they themselves having to explore. Those are all things.

Usually, the I/O operation is a more intensive and costly one. In any transaction processing, the I/O is a more expensive operation due to storage and better performance. That's where most of the latency and time would be spent in overall flow. Exadata has an additional service and computing power at the storage level as well which reduces this latency. Usually it's available only on the high-end machines.

Exadata as a platform is a complete solution, where you have CPU memory with an additional server and inter-cell storage. That's the beauty of Exadata; IOPS and good overall latency and that's why we like it. We use it for the transaction processing, especially for production.

In terms of improvement, related to other products when we were running down the physical servers, we ran into some issues. We are always on the latest stack so at this point of time we are self-sufficient. Once we deployed Exadata, we never had to look back, at least in recent times.

One improvement would be the limitation on the storage. For example, when we buy with a double or triple CN, it comes with some storage. Once we reach that point, we don't have any other option. This was in the old version. We don't know how it is improved in the current version; maybe there is a way to optimize it and we can have additional storage allocated. In the earlier versions, we didn't have this possibility and we need to upgrade to a later version of Exadata to get more storage.

I have used this product for more than 4 or 5 years.

It's a stable solution but it comes with a price. You get performance and there is a cost associated with the performance. The Exadata tool is best when you can afford. You get best quality, in terms of the overall product features.

It depends on each case, your use and the company. For us, it is scalable and working for our use.

For me, what we have right now is scalable and it is serving our purpose.

They have a dedicated team exclusively for Exadata. Whenever we ran into some issues with the tool, they nailed it down. The support was good in Oracle because this is a prestigious product from Oracle. They have their support model.

The most valuable feature is the flash cache. Let's say you have brought it in at the application level. You don't want to change your code. You take the object, you put it in the flash, and it runs fast.

The biggest benefit for organization is the performance. That's it. That's the endgame. We want to satisfy the client. When they click, they get it fast, and that's it.

Also, the fact that it reduces your IO because the storage and the server, everything's in the same box, makes it easier and faster.

Support.

It is stable.

Well, they give you a box. We haven't come to a case where we need to add more servers or nodes to it. For the moment, what we have is what we're using and it's doing what it's supposed to do.

Our main issue is the CPU; they can't cope with what we want. The application is CPU-bound. They have to find a way, talk to Intel, design something, so it's fast, so it can provide more CPU, more bang for the buck. It's expensive.

It depends on what the ticket is about. It's easy to open a ticket. Now, to get solution on this ticket, that's a different story because they start asking for all the logs. You give them the logs, and they still want more logs; all this time, the problem is not resolved. That’s not particular to the Exadata platform; it's a general Oracle issue. It can be an arduous process.

Also, when you open the ticket, you don't get a senior guy right away; you get a junior person. You have to complain, and say, "Guys I know what I'm talking about, move it.", before they go to the next level. Then, you get who you want. That's another issue, but they have been there for many years. They need to improve their technical support.

If you know what you’re doing, initial setup is no big deal.

We also evaluated Superdome. We decided to go with the Oracle product because we are an Oracle shop. Oracle has intelligence on what it's doing. It integrates really well.

The main thing I would tell people is, whoever is going to maintain it has to know what he's doing. When you spend your money and you don't have the good people, you don't get your money back. It's a waste of money. You have to know who you are putting on it, so they can give everything back to you. Otherwise, it's a good product.

It's a good product. It's stable.

Offloading is the most valuable feature of Exadata.

It integrates well with our other products.

• Conservation
• Performance

There are little things that need fine tuning, such as storage.

It’s also missing some features that you would expect from a data warehousing tool, such as snapshots.

It is stable.

It scales well for our needs.

Technical support is good.

We also looked at Teradata, but Exadata is perfect.

Definitely take some courses on Clusterware, ASM, Real Application Clusters; those kinds of courses, advanced courses.

A valuable feature is that everything goes into one machine; Oracle and the applications, so that is a big advantage.

Sometimes, I don't see any difference between Linux servers and the Oracle ones.

We have only used this product for 3 years so I cannot say what exactly needs improvement.

See my Technical Support answer below.

I have been using this product for about 3 years.

It is stable. Sometimes we need to do patching and they take the system down. For example, we did patching a couple of weeks ago and they took the system down. They said it's the OS patching although they did not inform us beforehand. They just went ahead and did it.

That's one thing about Exadata: Sometimes when there are errors, they have do the patching. We cannot just do it ourselves.

The product is scalable.

In my management, I have no say as what to buy. I'm just doing the work. They keep buying it, so we have to keep supporting it.

The technical support is terrible. When I search on Google, I get more answers than from the Oracle support team. For example, when we reach out to Oracle and claim something is not working like we cannot get OEM to connect from the Exadata machine. I simply searched on Google and found the answer. The Oracle support team could not find the solution for 3-4 weeks. Finally, I searched on Google and I found the answer in less than 1 hour. The issue was that 1 of the files had no permission for OEM to connect. That's it. Google is good. I can search anything on Google, not Oracle support.

As a DBA, we usually use it for the database upgrade which is straightforward. For the OS upgrade, it's mainly up to the Oracle support and the platform support to carry out the upgrade. We don't do it. We're even afraid to install any third-party/ other vendor's application on it, as it may be harmful.

One thing that's good is that everything is into one machine; the database and the application that we are using. Oracle cannot blame the third-party vendor. It's an OEM problem, so Oracle itself needs to support this product. That's the only advantage that I see. Oracle loves to blame somebody else for their issues. That’s why I am not keen on this product.

I use a lot of Linux servers and they all do the same thing.

The most valuable feature is the fact that it's an engineered system. It's a database in a box, storage, the networking, the compute engines. All of it's in one nice, neat package. My DBAs like administering it. My application owners like its reliability on the back end.

The benefits we see are our ability to scale heavy workloads, and our ability to consolidate lighter workloads and reduce our sprawl through the data center.

Price: It’s extremely expensive. Maintenance is about industry average. I think they've got a pretty good upgrade road map. It's been an expensive ride for us but a necessary one.

It is very stable; no major issues; no down time that was a result of bugs or some kind of defect in the platform.

It has scaled well to your needs.

As a member of IT management with business units breathing down our neck when there is an issue or something like that, we always feel the support can be faster but I don't get a lot of complaints. It's good support. Like everything, it could be faster. We'd want it to be faster.

Initial setup was straightforward for us because we used an integrator partner to put it all in for us, and then our administrators step in and take over.

We're constantly looking at other products.

We ultimately chose Exadata because we needed some muscle on the back end for an ERP implementation. We've been through Exadata first generation, and right now we're putting in X6s. We've had X2s, X3s, X4s, and we're actually installing X6s right now as we lifecycle through.

It's a great investment for the large enterprise. I think with Exadata in the cloud that's coming, that we're starting to look at and they are obviously trying to push at conferences, I think it'll open itself up to a lot of other customers that probably wouldn't have gone with such an expensive on-premise solution. We're excited about that, too. I would definitely recommend it to any colleagues.

We're very happy with it.