Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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 best thing about this solution is the tight integration with VMware, Cisco, and NetApp from both a hardware and software perspective."
"It's a new architecture, really scalable and programmable. When you look at SDN propositions it fits very well in a next-gen data center."
"Going from the old monolithic server and silo storage that they used to use is an improvement. With the FlexPod solution, just being able to manage and monitor the overall environment helps."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the integration and ease of use."
"The ability to create vDisks on NFS exports is an added advantage. This is very helpful when we reach RDM limit."
"All of our main applications run on this solution, and it has done a stellar job."
"The solution’s unified support for the entire stack provides one stop shopping."
"The system is designed for easy scaling. Because we define everything clearly. So when we plug the system in, we apply the profile, and it scales easily."
"Oracle Exadata's performance is one of its best features. We very satisfied with it."
"Once installed, Exadata is very stable."
"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."
"The new Exadata x9m has an even higher speed of 100GBps connectivity."
"The business intelligence is very good."
"Compression is a great feature, where one can really save a lot of storage."
"Exadata's best features are its performance during redo logging and the elasticity of the database handling."
"Oracle has reliable solutions and this one is no different."
 

Cons

"Hardware stability needs improvement. We replaced a lot of RAM this past year. We had to replace the complete blade once after extensive troubleshooting. Any given time, we have approximately one blade down within the entire infrastructure, unfortunately."
"I would like to see the following: Support for multiple vendors' hardware; support for SAN with Cisco 9000 switches; automated deployment and configuration with respect to CVD."
"There are times where we have had issues with technical support."
"Maybe in the future, they could include the HCI solution into the mix."
"We would like better management of cases. For example, if you open a FlexPod case, it's not always straightforward. It would be nice to have centralized resource to open FlexPod cases and ease up management of our cases."
"You must build each block separately, that's a disadvantage sometimes."
"With the UCS X-Series, I would like to see the fabric interconnects in the chassis. Instead of hanging out so the chassis is 7U, you are increasing your footprint to 9U with the fabric enhancer, where some of the competing solutions are 7U and have collapsed that network fabric into the chassis. This is another thing that I would like to see from Cisco, though not really on the NetApp side since that is pretty solid."
"There is always room for improvement. I believe we can do hot swaps on the fly. On the release upgrades, if there was a way to do a release on the fly, that would really be cool because it does take some downtime. It takes restarting. It is more of a software thing. Customers hate doing releases."
"The price is also higher than I would prefer."
"License or upgrade management can be difficult and time consuming because it requires login to a separate console."
"There is a feature for security, but it is not included in the first purchase of this solution. That means if you need to increase the security, you need to buy the security feature which doesn't come by default on these solutions."
"I liked Spark, but it was discontinued when Exadata L6 came back. I loved it, and I wish they would bring back Spark integration."
"There is room for improvement with the handling of the Temp IO, which is often used for JOIN statements."
"The solution takes a lot of time to clone the environment. I would like to see some improvement in the cloning support or the time it takes on the storage side."
"It would be nice to have a single click button to, say, migrate my VMware VM into the Oracle VM, or vice-versa."
"I find its pricing reasonable and cost-effective for large organizations, but for smaller organizations, it may not be that useful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have saved time on new service deployments. I've done deployments in under a week, and if it's a cloud-based deployment, it's even faster."
"We have a lease for approximately $10,000 USD per month."
"We purchased the solution through CDW. They are a partner and knowledgeable."
"Overall, the solution works pretty well. The biggest complaint I have from customers is the cost."
"The product's pricing is high and I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"We have saved time, money, space, and power consumption on new service deployments. We have a data center in Toronto which had ten racks on one of the new servers. This was all reduced to two racks with six chassis, which is amazing."
"Make sure that you engage as much with whom you are buying from as a partnership, not just as a purchase."
"We have saved 50 percent on new service deployments."
"Exadata is an expensive tool, but, considering the ROI, it's worth going for the solution."
"I think it's free."
"There is an annual license to use this solution. The solution is expensive."
"The price of Oracle Exadata is competitive. There are some features that are outside of the initial purchase license, such as some monitoring packages."
"The cost of the product could be improved."
"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."
"The solution’s cost is a little bit more than the traditional databases."
"The price is very high."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Converged Infrastructure solutions are best for your needs.
882,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
26%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Marketing Services Firm
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

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in Converged Infrastructure. Updated: February 2026.
882,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.