The world's first OLTP Database Machine was unveiled yesterday by Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, with John Fowler, Sun executive vice president, during a live webcast. "For a long time we have been working with Sun and this is the latest output of that partnership-Oracle Exadata version 2, hardware by Sun and software by Oracle," said Ellison.
"It is the first database machine that does online transaction processing," said Ellison. "All the other machines-Teradata, Netezza, etc. -are designed just for data warehousing. Oracle Exadata version 1 was designed just for data warehousing. This is the first time a database machine has ever been able to do both data warehousing and online transaction processing."
Built using industry standard hardware components plus FlashFire technology from Sun, Oracle Database 11g Release 2 and Oracle Exadata Storage Server Software Release 11.2, the Sun Oracle Database Machine Version 2 is twice as fast as Version 1 for data warehousing.
The Sun Oracle Database Machine goes beyond data warehousing applications with the addition of Exadata Smart Flash Cache based on Sun FlashFire technology to deliver extreme performance and scalability for online transaction processing (OLTP).
Exadata Version 2 is available in four models: full rack (8 database servers and 14 storage servers), half-rack (4 database servers and 7 storage servers), quarter-rack (2 database servers and 3 storage servers) and a basic system (1 database server and 1 storage server). All four Exadata configurations are available immediately.
With the Sun Oracle Database Machine, Oracle customers can store more than 10 times the amount of data and search data more than 10 times faster without making any changes to applications.
"We are still the fastest machine in the world for data warehousing, but now we are also by far the fastest machine in the world for online transaction processing," said Ellison.
The European Commission recently decided to seek more information regarding Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems by conducting a Phase Two inquiry. The U.S. Department of Justice approved the proposed acquisition without conditions and terminated the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act on August 20, 2009. Sun's stockholders approved the transaction on July 16, 2009. Closing of the transaction is subject to certain conditions, including clearance by the European Commission.
More details here.