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FlexPod XCS vs Oracle Exadata comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

FlexPod XCS
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (2nd)
Oracle Exadata
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
130
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

FlexPod XCS and Oracle Exadata aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. FlexPod XCS is designed for Converged Infrastructure and holds a mindshare of 12.3%, up 8.6% compared to last year.
Oracle Exadata, on the other hand, focuses on Data Warehouse, holds 8.7% mindshare, down 17.1% since last year.
Converged Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
FlexPod XCS12.3%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.7%
Dell VxBlock System9.4%
Other66.6%
Converged Infrastructure
Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle Exadata8.7%
Snowflake10.1%
Teradata9.4%
Other71.80000000000001%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Deputy IT Manager at MBBank
Enforces standardized setup procedures following Certified Validated Design (CVD) guidelines and offers greater flexibility and control over the system compared to traditional systems
The GUI setup follows the right setup, meaning we have to follow the CVDi.e. Certified Validated Design. Everything is clear, because you can build CI yourself, but without rules, it can be messy. With FlexPod, there are rules to follow, making it more standardized. This helps with troubleshooting and compatibility assessments, simplifying troubleshooting significantly. We also use FlexPod pre-validated architectures to validate the design. It is very, very important to us because we had a bad case in 2015 where separate items integrated poorly due to no version or firmware compatibility certification. Troubleshooting became a nightmare. So, standards are crucial for us, and everything entering production should be verified or at least documented for certification.
Prabir Kumar Kundu - PeerSpot reviewer
SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd
Has consistently delivered high performance and aligned security while evolving with AI-driven improvements
When discussing Oracle Exadata, the main thing is the specialized database appliance, the flash cache, and the engineered machine on the database for the database itself. Overall, all the features are useful and meaningful for any database like Oracle to run the Oracle database. Regarding Smart Scan technology, it is for better performance. If a customer cannot tune their applications, this will help them to run the database and run the application without any tuning itself. Oracle Exadata's advanced compression techniques have affected my customer's data storage efficiency positively, with the feature being great, but as of now, our customer is not using that. I find its security measures align with my customer's organization, as security is aligned as per the customer's requirement. It has helped optimize performance and cost.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The fact that it can run the entire stack in terms of protocols. The integration for most of our customers is VMware; the full-stack integration. Also, the ability to do rapid cloning."
"With the components that come in FlexPod, it has enabled us to reduce connectivity down to one wire, whereas before, we had eight, 12, or 20 wires going to one server."
"The tool provides a single point for storing applications and it increases the availability of them. It also has improved the way we handle applications within VMware."
"The solution was simple to deploy."
"The Cisco Validated Designs are the most valuable feature along with the Industry-leading technology, put together; and the fact that it just works."
"When you open the box, they give you a very nice diagram. Which was my initial guide through setting up any NetApp SAN. It worked itself out pretty well."
"It's flexible. You can scale up or out. Our environment has never needed it, but the option has always been there."
"This sounds dumb, but it just works. I don't want to have to deal with support, and I don't need to because, again, it has just worked."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle Exadata is the smart scan. We have large TB sessions of approximately 100 per second for each of our three instances. The smart scan allows us the obtain data in time in the enterprise manager."
"The most valuable feature is the time to solution."
"What I like most about Oracle Exadata is its smart scan feature. I also like that it supports higher capacities and it's high-performing, so my company can use Oracle Exadata for massive databases."
"Oracle is easy to use for peripheral things, such as the data vault and the data firewall, data sync, and partitions. These are the features that give an edge to other databases."
"The tool performs well with a large database."
"The ease of setup is an eight out of ten."
"The storage capacity and the performance of Oracle Exadata are good. When comparing the performance to other technologies it is very good. I am satisfied with the management of the solution."
"Oracle has reliable solutions and this one is no different."
 

Cons

"Not a ten because it could always be cheaper, it could always be faster."
"FlexPod was born to be used like building-block elements, to create large EDP premises. If used to create a single FlexPod CED, optional operational collaterals (backup, management, etc.) are missing, both in docs and in design."
"The only support call that we have had in six years was related to an ONTAP upgrade, where one of the controllers didn't patch properly."
"Cisco support is much slower. Opening cases with Cisco tech is sometimes a bit tedious. The return time for less important calls can be slower. Even Priority 1 calls can sometimes be a bit long and they will have to call me back."
"FlexPod XCS' pricing could be cheaper. You need to find the right person for support."
"FlexPod will do very well on the average app, but there's room for improvement in performance and the data center side."
"Our environment does not always require this solution, so we are not reaping the optimal ROI."
"I would like to see more cloud-centric modules that are specific to applications and more software-based solutions. That's all that is missing."
"Oracle Exadata could improve by having faster data retrieval. We receive data at four or five seconds and want to reduce that number to one second."
"We have a little trepidation with the system as it does have a learning curve. Also changing to a binary logging format for us feels like retrograde motion, but sadly almost all Linux variants have moved in this direction."
"Tech support sometimes takes some time to identify and rectify issues."
"Checking the Smart Scan issues is complicated."
"The scalability can be improved as it is not a parallel execution."
"A room for improvement in Oracle Exadata is that it's not very easy to use in a microservices environment. It's not easy to split databases, and if this was easier to do in Oracle Exadata, it would make the solution better. What I'd like to see in the next release of Oracle Exadata is for it to become more modular, so you can use it in a context where the data layer is spread between many independent services."
"I find its pricing reasonable and cost-effective for large organizations, but for smaller organizations, it may not be that useful."
"It is difficult to evaluate return-on-investment because of the way billing is handled for the product. This should be improved by oracle."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We purchased from CDW•G. They are great partners on the government side."
"We have saved time and money for new service deployments."
"I find the licensing and pricing structure to be favorable."
"The footprint in the data center is quite large, especially when you scale out. Maybe find some hardware in the future, where if a new blade comes out, then Cisco can say, "Look, we'll buy those blades back off you, and we'll give you this blade for X amount of money." A buyback scheme would be good for hardware, and even NetApp as well. Something like a buyback scheme for blades and stuff moving forward would be good, because I know that they're going to put more power into them. E.g., replacing four blades might equal one blade, which would be awesome, but we are still going to have those four blades around. Maybe having something where it will give you this much money for these blades so we can upgrade. That would be perfect."
"The main return on investment would be that instead of having to refresh all of our desktop hardware we have been able to go reimage existing machines and use those as thin clients, then also purchase new thin clients rather than buying actual hardware. It also reduces the overhead of having our technicians deploy those systems and maintain them."
"We purchased FlexPod though Datalink."
"We definitely saw a lot of operational cost savings using FlexPod. As far as capital outlay goes, that was a little bit too much for us to swallow and we weren't able to recognize enough savings in that area to afford it."
"It is not cheap, but there is a return on investment in time saved and efficiency."
"The cost of the solution is high."
"The solution is expensive."
"All things considered, the price of this product is fairly high, as is always the case with Oracle."
"In the sizing phase, you can also decide whether to license all cores, or reduce the number cores using capacity-on-demand features of Exadata, as well. This has a direct impact on licensing."
"It is an expensive product and you pay more for certain performance enhancements."
"The Initial investment price could use improvement"
"The solution’s cost is a little bit more than the traditional databases."
"I'm giving Oracle Exadata five out of ten in terms of pricing. Its price could be lower."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
31%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Performing Arts
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise182
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise86
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata?
I find its pricing reasonable and cost-effective for large organizations, but for smaller organizations, it may not be that useful.
What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata?
I believe that there is still room for improvement in Oracle Exadata, as they are putting AI features on those databases, which is making the database more user-friendly. Even you can talk to the d...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Exadata?
I deal most with Oracle database. I have been working with Oracle Database Appliance for more than 25 years, and if you're talking about appliance, it's more than 10 years, but on Oracle database, ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group
PayPal, EBS, Organic Food Retailer, Garmin, University of Minnesota, Major Semiconductor Company, Deutsche Bank, Starwood, Ziraat Bank, SK Telecom, and P&G.
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