Oracle released new versions of several of its engineered systems which provide tightly integrated hardware and software.
The Exadata X6 Database Machine offers the latest Intel Xeon processors, InfiniBand networking, scale-out Oracle Exadata Storage Servers with all-flash or disk plus flash storage, and Exadata’s Storage Server Software.
Cloud Deployment
In addition to purchasing the Oracle Exadata X6 for deployment on premises, Oracle offers the option of using Exadata via the Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service. Oracle experts deploy and manage the Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service, available via metered or subscription licensing.
Oracle also recently announced Oracle Cloud at Customer, which allows customers to run Oracle Cloud services on their premises. All of the Oracle Database Cloud Services, including the Oracle Exadata Database Cloud Service will be available via this offering.
Engineered Systems X6 Updates
Oracle is announcing X6 upgrades for two additional engineered systems. First, the Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance incorporates the new X6 technologies to enhance Oracle Database protection featuring automated recovery, restore, backup, and logging; faster recovery point objective to eliminate the risk of data loss; and increased database performance by offloading backup processing. Second, the Oracle SuperCluster M7, integrated with the Oracle Exadata X6 storage servers, provides a platform for Oracle Database and application consolidation solutions, allowing customers to improve the performance and availability of both databases and applications in single system.
Memory Performance with Shared Flash
The just announced Exadata X6 Database Machine combines 3D V-NAND flash with database intelligence in storage to achieve what the company describes as “near DRAM level” throughput from shared flash. It achieves more than 300GB per second of data throughput per rack, which the company says is more than 10 times faster than its competitors’ all-flash storage arrays.
- The High Capacity variant of Oracle Exadata X6 uses helium-filled 8TB disks to deliver more than 1.3PB of disk capacity per rack. In addition, integrated intelligent flash caching provides the performance of flash with the economics of disk capacity.
- The Extreme Flash (all-flash) variant of Oracle Exadata X6 provides more than 358TB of state- NVMe flash per rack, enabling capacity that exceeds the maximum capacity of its competitors’ all-flash storage arrays, and the ability to scale to more than 6PB of flash with multiple racks, the company says.
Real-Time OLTP
According to Oracle, in the past, two key constraints to OLTP scaling have been random I/O bottlenecks, and inter-node server coordination. The latest Exadata, it says, overcomes random I/O bottlenecks to achieve more than 5.6 million I/O operations per second per rack, outperforming its competitors’ all-flash storage arrays. And, overcoming inter-node server coordination issues, new Oracle Exadata InfiniBand-based algorithms, such as the Direct-to-Wire protocol and Smart Fusion Block Transfers, increase the speed of OLTP messaging by up to a factor of three.
OLTP is supported through Oracle Exadata’s full-stack integration for fast detection of failures, sub-second redirection of I/O around failing devices, and fast problem resolution, while its Database In-Memory fault-tolerance adds additional protection.