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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 12.6%, up 8.8% compared to last year.
Oracle Exadata, on the other hand, focuses on Data Warehouse, holds 8.1% mindshare, down 16.7% since last year.
Converged Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
FlexPod XCS12.6%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.5%
Dell VxBlock System8.7%
Other67.2%
Converged Infrastructure
Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle Exadata8.1%
Snowflake10.2%
Teradata9.0%
Other72.7%
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 initial setup was very straightforward. They provided a lot of documentation."
"The most valuable features are that the solution is vetted and validated and it's supported end-to-end."
"It's less resource-intensive, given that it comes in a package."
"Performance-wise, it is actually doing quite well. The end users are very happy with it."
"I have never seen a more resilient HA product out there then NetApp's solution. If I want to know that I'm putting my workload on a solution, from a storage perspective, that is going to be up 100% of the time, I'm going to choose NetApp."
"Our performance increase has been about 15 percent from what we previously used."
"All-flash storage and low latency I/O enhance performance."
"We enjoy the standardization and having things consistent across the whole data center sphere."
"What I like best about Oracle Exadata is its good performance. It's also a very fast 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."
"The data replication is very good."
"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."
"Oracle Exadata is stable."
"It is a highly relevant option with extreme performance."
"The product is flexible."
"I am satisfied with its functionalities and performance."
 

Cons

"FlexPod XCS' pricing could be cheaper. You need to find the right person for support."
"The cost may be high compared to other solutions."
"Automatic tiering would be good to have."
"Our environment does not always require this solution, so we are not reaping the optimal ROI."
"FlexPods can include the new networking and new virtualization of storage and data center interconnectivity with the networking side of it. They can evolve and grow by connecting pods together."
"The biggest thing that I would like to see is more cost-effective FlexPod solutions."
"I want to use the expansion to its fullest extent, scaling by deploying 10 to 15 virtual missions in a given FlexPod."
"Some of the define features could use improvement."
"It's too expensive per terabyte. It's complex."
"I would like to add some features to run applications or microservices-based applications on Exadata."
"Tech support sometimes takes some time to identify and rectify issues."
"We have experienced some issues with processing unstructured data on Exadata. This is an important requirement for our AIML based use case. Reactive analytics data can not be prepared easily in Oracle Exadata."
"Checking the Smart Scan issues is complicated."
"I find its pricing reasonable and cost-effective for large organizations, but for smaller organizations, it may not be that useful."
"In a future release, I would like to see some upgrade analysis advisors to help with a clear roadmap on steps that need to be taken and some of the automated processes."
"The setup is a little bit complex. We would like to see the installation part get easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"As a whole, it is inexpensive, and it uses the least amount of parts."
"Everything is purchased, so we do not do any leasing with this product."
"Overall, the solution works pretty well. The biggest complaint I have from customers is the cost."
"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 product is kind of expensive even from an entry-level standpoint. I would say FlexPod would be the way to go if you are a larger business or one with large data volume."
"If your company really needs to be up 100% of the time, and you need to do a private data center, I don't know if I could realistically actually recommend another blueprint."
"We have reduced our manpower with the solution."
"The cost of the solution is high."
"The solution’s cost is a little bit more than the traditional databases."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten."
"The cost of the product could be improved."
"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."
"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."
"We pay for an annual license and it is expensive."
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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
26%
Computer Software Company
7%
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
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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: February 2026.
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