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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 12.8%, up 9.3% compared to last year.
Oracle Exadata, on the other hand, focuses on Data Warehouse, holds 7.6% mindshare, down 16.3% since last year.
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FlexPod XCS12.8%
HPE ConvergedSystem10.8%
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance8.2%
Other68.2%
Converged Infrastructure
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Exadata7.6%
Snowflake9.5%
Teradata8.8%
Other74.1%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
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

"Based on the fact that our clients can use code to program the system, they are able to deploy solutions that are a lot more reliable, enabling them to focus more on their business rather than solving technology problems."
"Our top customers are very happy with this solution."
"FlexPod has improved our company as far as ease of management, stability, and redundancy."
"My advice to anybody considering this product is to give it a close look because it's a great solution."
"Without FlexPod, it probably takes about ten hours; with FlexPod, within two hours, we are up and running, so we have seen about an 80 percent time decrease."
"It's flexible; it's adaptable; it's pretty fast; and it's non-disruptive."
"FlexPod is the primary solution we recommend for clients with high-availability server requirements. Our clients find FlexPod's management helpful. You can manage everything via plugins."
"The struggle was their speed of deployment (contacting different vendors that took time through the internal authorization procedure), and FlexPod sped up this process by 50-60%."
"The innovative use of all the technologies integrated so creatively and functionally provides an immense performance boost impossible to attain with do-it-yourself systems."
"What I like best about Oracle Exadata is its good performance. It's also a very fast solution."
"If you're really I/O bound, it's a great solution; I/O bound from performance to storage."
"It has improved the performance, now we run with more performance cores with less CPU to attend all the database demands, reducing Time to Market, increasing our ability to face the competition with speed and low cost."
"Oracle Exadata is stable."
"The key capability of Exadata, which is not found in any other solution or appliance, is its enhancement specifically for databases."
"It is a highly relevant option with extreme performance."
"Oracle is known to be the number one in their industry; the help and support, the features they are giving the clients comparing to other databases, the new technology, the provide a good solution."
 

Cons

"There have been issues upgrading the firmware."
"The biggest thing that I would like to see is more cost-effective FlexPod solutions."
"Add more automation into the Cisco UCS firmware upgrade process to make it more streamlined than it is today."
"I would also like to feel more support. NetApp has been pretty good, for the most part, but Cisco has more work to do. I've had very good experience with NetApp. Instead of having to call three different areas and saying, "I'm a FlexPod customer." It would be nice if it could be just one that gets routed. I know it would require three large companies to work together, but that's what would make this product a ten. They could definitely use with making it more user-friendly."
"A single place to initiate support to get them all at once – being able to call one place would be great instead of having to initiate with each vendor first and then ultimately finding out you need everyone on the phone."
"We've had a few technical problems, if those weren't present, then it would probably be perfect."
"I think it is sufficient for now, but in the next generation, I'd just like to see bigger, faster, and better."
"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 solution lacks a visualized console."
"The SRs that we raise are not always resolved in a timely fashion. Often I'm unhappy."
"I liked Spark, but it was discontinued when Exadata L6 came back. I loved it, and I wish they would bring back Spark integration."
"The cost of the solution is high and can be improved."
"Yes, it's a nicely engineered system but they also need to evaluate cost versus benefit. It's not cheap, I can tell you that."
"Our main issue is the CPU; they can't cope with what we want."
"One small area for improvement in Oracle Exadata is integration, particularly at the consolidated application level."
"Cost is very high. It needs to be made affordable to grab more customer base."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing is high and I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"Overall, the solution works pretty well. The biggest complaint I have from customers is the cost."
"Buy storage based on the solutions you need, the technologies you need, and what will make your life a lot easier down the road."
"In terms of the cost, the last bill I saw was about $3.5 million, from the latest contract. That might have been for a five-year contract."
"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."
"It created lower total cost of ownership. Previously, we had disparate storage and servers, and there were bits of kits everywhere. Now, we have two data centers with almost identical setups in both."
"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."
"We have seen our data center rack space collapse about 90 percent. We have a data center which only has two racks now out of the 20 that were there previously."
"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."
"There is an annual license to use this solution. The solution is expensive."
"Our customers are always looking to reduce the license's cost."
"The solution’s cost is a little bit more than the traditional databases."
"Oracle Exadata is not a cheap solution. Pricing is a problem for Oracle, and every client, not just my company, would like the vendor to improve on the price, or lower the price. My company paid for several years' worth of Oracle Exadata licenses. You need to pay for the technical support and other features separately, on different contracts. In terms of affordability, my rating for Oracle Exadata is two out of five."
"I did note that Oracle does tend to internally oversize things especially if they want to fill up a budget, and hence third-party oversight is essential."
"We pay for an annual license and it is expensive."
"The Initial investment price could use improvement"
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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
Financial Services Firm
20%
Marketing Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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
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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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in Converged Infrastructure. Updated: March 2026.
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