Oracle Exadata Reviews

Smart Scan, HCC Compression, Storage Indexes, Flash Cache, Flash Log and the two server types, i.e., High Performance and High Capacity are the most valuable features.

It provides terrific performance, huge space savings in compressed backups and lesser backup duration with parallelism.

Gathering various logs during the performance issues needs to improve.

I have used this solution for six years.

Initially, we did experience stability issue but thereafter, it was well-stabilized.

There were no scalability issues.

An excellent support is provided by Oracle, it is based on the support model paid for.

Previously, we were using the standard UNIX clustering servers. Performance and scalability are the reasons as to why we switched over to this solution.

The vendor does the setup.

This is a really good solution. Initially, query issues are expected but once stabilized, an amazing performance is expected.

It's a fast solution, though it does take some work to ensure that queries are offloading using bloom filters, etc.

It replaced a legacy database (SAND) and was part of a major overhaul. It didn't change the way the company worked per se, but it did force the creation of an Exadata compatible reporting framework, and it was that framework which enabled a leaner rewrite of the existing reports and provided a basis for new ones.

As soon as your joins get complicated, things start to go wrong. You lose much of the offloading and start spilling into temp space. We were reporting on billions of rows and it was a constant problem so a custom reporting framework had to be created. Parallel queries need to be carefully managed and the DBAs need to be right on top of the resource manager, as if you aren't managed properly as a user, you can end up waiting behind others. 

We've had no issues with deployment.

We've had no issues with stability.

We've had no issues with scalability.

There was quite a learning curve despite knowing that "things are different" with Exadata.

I do know it's eye-wateringly expensive and that we struggled to get it to do what we wanted it to do.

I'd be interested to see how the run times stack up against Hadoop or similar - but once you've spent the money, there's no going back!.

I like mainly the performance. Also, we have enabled RAC clusters. That's one of the main things, as well as high availability. The performance and high availability are really awesome.

The main benefit is that everything is powered by Oracle; the whole box, hardware, software, and storage. So we have the flexibility of going to one vendor directly instead of going to multiple vendors if we had any issues. If we have a storage issue, we go to them. If we have a database issue, we go to them. And if there are any patches or other updates, everything is combined as a single patch. We can apply it and it's easy to apply with a single command and easy to coordinate and support.

In the current version we're using, we had lots of storage issues, disk failures, etc. We think in the future, we'd like to see that reduced. That will reduce the cost and everything for the client.

It is stable.

We had an issue where we had to increase the storage and we got the new cells from Oracle. Then we scaled outward.

We have used technical support many times. Most of time it's okay, but sometimes there's a delay in the response. Then we have to escalate and get it done.

We didn’t have any previous solution. We had different vendors, like a storage vendor, and the DB software was from Oracle. As a security company, we want to maintain our compliance by applying the latest patches. That's why we chose this engineered system: so that we have a single vendor we can contact easily.

For setup, we had a consultant come in. They trained us initially and helped us with the set up. Then, after that, we started working on everything.

It's very costly.

I would suggest going with the product, but again it depends on the application, the budgeting and all that. The budget for the application depends on how critical the application is. If it's really critical and revenue generating, then I'll recommend going with this product. But if it is not so critical, then I'll recommend going with something is less costly.

Mainly, we already had experience with the Oracle database and that's why we chose this one.

Technical support is one of the things we look for in a vendor, because any issue we get we want to get a response as soon as possible. We also consider the stability of the product.

We are service providers and provide this solution to our customers. We deploy the on-prem deployment model.

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.

There is no room for improvement because everything that they could solve, they have. It has good storage optimization, hardware actualization, and internal communication network. They made improvements in whatever they could. 

The problem with the Oracle Exadata is that it is a dead-end of technology. The supplier's market is dying, so they have no future. For analytical purposes, companies are now using analytical databases. So they're using databases like MPP, multi-parallel processing databases, things like Greenplum, and Teradata. Exadata has no future. It is going into history. Five years ago, it was top technology. Now, they don't have a future.

It's too expensive per terabyte. It's complex and hard to expand.

I have been using this solution for seven to eight years.

It's stable.

Scalability is really tough because it's scalable as much as an appliance is scalable. If you want to scale it, you need to add an appliance itself. You can buy one-eighth of a rack, one-quarter, one-half of rack. If you still want to extend capacity, you need to buy another module that is another eighth or quarter or half and you need to install it into a rack. It's quite complex. This is one of the reasons why appliances are not that popular anymore because modern databases are on hardware and you just put on another server, another node. It's quite expensive, compared to the commodity hardware.

The initial setup is quite complex because it's an appliance. It's a big box with all the processing power and storage that you need to order and get installed. It's pretty complex.

You need to do the installation which is done by Oracle. It's not just software, it's an appliance. When customers want to buy it, I need to order it. They want it a lot faster and it's actually quite expensive. If Oracle or Oracle partners have this appliance in stock it can be quick but if it's ordered through a manufacturer it can be lengthy. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten.

It provides performance for our highly critical applications.

They seem to be doing real well with keeping up on the performance and everything, especially what I have seen with the new chipset that is being offered. I can't really think of anything that they are not doing that they should be doing.

It can be difficult to patch and maintain because there are so many databases running on it.

We have been using Exadata for about five years.

We have had no down time with it, but it can be difficult to patch and maintain because there are so many databases running on it.

It is an absolutely scalable solution.

The support is very good.

I'm not involved in operations that much, but from what I understand, they get back to us; they always find the right person.

Oracle comes in and does the initial setup.

I recommend it for highly critical, performance-sensitive applications. You have to do a TCO on it because it is a fairly expensive solution. There has to be a cost-benefit analysis done on that.

The technology in the on-premises version of Exadata is pretty much the same as the cloud edition. However, the cloud version is much more flexible when it comes to sizing and pricing.

On-premises Exadata is just as stable as the cloud version. It's a very stable platform.

Setting up Exadata is complex. You need an Oracle vendor or someone who is Oracle-certified to set it up.

I would rate Exadata eight out of 10. If you are considering this solution, I recommend first seeing what other options are available for Oracle and MPP databases. If you are familiar with Oracle and are accustomed to working with it, you should stay with Oracle. For a better price-performance ratio, I would suggest other options and MPP databases.

On-premises

Exadata is Oracle's solution for a fully Engineered Integrated Hardware and Software platform for Oracle Databases. Extensive Storage level features such as Smart Scan, Flash Cache and Hybrid Columnar Compression. The Infiniband Switch is very fast for all communication channels. Excellent performance gains especially for large data warehouse types of applications.

OLTP applications with smaller data footprints don't tend to gain too much from Exadata hardware. The majority of benefits are reaped by applications which are i/o bound and caching helps a great deal with that. Oracle manages the entire hardware and software including database and OS patches but companies need to pay heavily for that service. It is expensive hardware compared to integrated commodity hardware and software.

The Infiniband switch has some distance limitations and a true DR (Disaster Recovery) site cannot be setup with Exadata, The operating system allowed is ONLY OEL (Oracle Enterprise Linux) which is a big limitation. One has to go through Oracle's support system - tickets and service requests to make any changes to the Exadata machine.