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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 (3rd)
Oracle Exadata
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
129
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 10.3%, up 9.5% compared to last year.
Oracle Exadata, on the other hand, focuses on Data Warehouse, holds 14.2% mindshare, down 18.6% since last year.
Converged Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
FlexPod XCS10.3%
HPE ConvergedSystem16.6%
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance14.2%
Other58.9%
Converged Infrastructure
Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle Exadata14.2%
Snowflake12.5%
Teradata12.1%
Other61.2%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Ahmed-Yehia - PeerSpot reviewer
Exceptional database performance with high availability and good reliability
The major use of Exadata is for running databases, big databases, and also for backing them up. It provides high availability and high performance specifically for databases, and not for applications, just Oracle databases High availability and high performance are very valuable aspects of the…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FlexPods allow us to go through and roll out compute, having a converged infrastructure with the same level of simplicity that you would expect of a hyper-converged."
"It is extremely stable and well-supported because of the leadership and partnerships put in place."
"I would rate technical support as a 10 out of 10. They are good and responsive."
"It ships in a rack, so it is very easy to deploy."
"FlexPod provides very small footprint. We can have it in our offices without bothering with extra cooling, as it is a small unit."
"NetApp is always coming up with features that I want before I know that I want them."
"It's a kind of one-stop shop as far as support goes."
"The storage efficiency and performance are valuable."
"I am satisfied with its functionalities and performance."
"It is a scalable solution."
"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."
"It is the best solution for OLTP and data warehousing."
"What I found most valuable in Oracle Exadata is its newer technology that gives better performance. It has more recent hardware and significant changes in the architecture, so it's better than older solutions."
"Oracle Exadata's performance is one of its best features. We very satisfied with it."
"The most valuable feature is that you have the same familiar environment of an Oracle database but with the additional performance you get from this architecture."
"The offloading of data to the SIM is a valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Automatic tiering would be good to have."
"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."
"FlexPod XCS' pricing could be cheaper. You need to find the right person for support."
"I would like to see more storage-related features."
"We would like to have more monitoring and reporting, because today some of the reporting, and if you purchase it separately is expensive. We use OnCommand Unified Manager today, which is great, but we are looking for more of that."
"The initial learning curve is pretty steep."
"Make it easier to refresh hardware. We got to the point where we couldn't fix vulnerabilities without refreshing the hardware, then that became a little too expensive for us to do."
"We would like them to have better features to integrate with the cloud."
"The management monitoring tools are quite important and an area that needs some improvement."
"One small area for improvement in Oracle Exadata is integration, particularly at the consolidated application level."
"It is difficult to evaluate return-on-investment because of the way billing is handled for the product. This should be improved by oracle."
"The integration with third-party applications regarding access management security could be better."
"The scalability can be improved as it is not a parallel execution."
"We used the support from Oracle Exadata to complete the implementation."
"The solution lacks a visualized console."
"License or upgrade management can be difficult and time consuming because it requires login to a separate console."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing and licensing is very affordable from a FlexPod perspective."
"Buy storage based on the solutions you need, the technologies you need, and what will make your life a lot easier down the road."
"We fear high availability so we can't buy from different providers."
"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."
"The scalability is very good. I wish it was a more cost-effective, but you get what you pay for."
"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 investment has been great. We put our money into it and it has given us something that we have been able to rely on for years."
"The majority of our customers are in government or big enterprises, and the projects that we sell come out to several million USD. With this amount of money on the table, it's always better to have an experienced team of consultants, who know Exadata very well, handle the implementation."
"The Initial investment price could use improvement"
"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'm giving Oracle Exadata five out of ten in terms of pricing. Its price could be lower."
"The cost of the solution is high."
"Oracle is always costly but it's fine."
"The solution is expensive."
"Our customers are always looking to reduce the license's cost."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Manufacturing Company
23%
Performing Arts
10%
Educational Organization
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
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 Enterprise13
Large Enterprise86
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FlexPod?
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FlexPod?
The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers. Following XCS rules ensures a stable environment, which is crucial. For me, C...
What needs improvement with FlexPod?
FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities. More automation would be helpful. Currently, we cont...
What do you like most about Oracle Exadata?
It is the best solution for OLTP and data warehousing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata?
The cost of Oracle Exadata is substantial, particularly in terms of maintenance costs and licensing. This pricing strategy has led to strained relationships with IT companies including HP and Cisco...
What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata?
Patching Oracle Exadata can be challenging due to its numerous components including network, blade, CPU, storage, and VMs. The system's complexity extends beyond simple maintenance tasks. The perfo...
 

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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