Oracle Exalogic [EOL] Reviews

The product is best used to create private clouds for middleware based on the Oracle stack and on Oracle Enterprise applications that use the WebLogic platform.This is simply the best-performing platform for this particular use case. However, the product is not appropriate for other technology stacks. Even though it might in some cases be able to run them, the results will not be as optimal. For example, Oracle E-Business Suite version 12.13 is not based on WebLogic, but on OC4J; hence, the advantages of running it on Exalogic are not as significant as the benefits with E-Business Suite 12.2, which is WebLogic based.

Also, virtual machines in Exalogic need to be based on special templates that allow VM access to the native InfiniBand protocol, something which is not available in all the other virtualization solutions that use InfiniBand as a backbone but do not expose it to the VMs.

As mentioned, we do not internally use this product, but we have implemented it for our clients. When combined with other engineered systems such as Exadata, we have seen from 20% to 60% better performance overall with certain operations showing much, much improved execution times.

decrease the licenses cost of oracle apps and FMW. AS Exalogic support oracle trusted partitioning license policy to license oracle apps.  

It has improved the way my organization functions by migrating apps to one consolidated platform that is dedicated to WebLogic and Oracle apps.

OVM and the InfiniBand readiness ([IBO] TCP port settings) of the VM’s in this OVM version for Exalogic are the most valuable features.

We were able to decommission more then 20 blade servers, all of which are now running on Exalogic.

It's vendor-managed, preconfigured, and engineered. It's important mainly for reducing time and complexity in the setup and first delivery of IT environments.

It's improved the delivery of virtual machines and setting them up with WebLogic (Application Server).

The most valuable feature of the product is the infinity band solution, but only if you have all of the components – Applications, Middleware, Database – running in the same cloud or in the same box.

The technology has a good I/O response rate that permits very high data processing between the frontend and backend layers.

We used it a lot for BI Operations, for JMS, and other business operations that need a very fast response for webservices and the result was satisfactory. On comparison with other solutions, VM for example, we saw a 70% performance improvement.

The virtualization, especially vUser creation, is the most valuable feature for us.

Flexibility on server creation and deployment are much easier on this machine.

The database is the solution's most valuable feature. Running the application on one machine makes it easier to position it to the client. I don't need a separate machine to run my databases. I can virtually run the databases with the application. The Linux component of it is great as well. It makes it easier to administrate. There are a lot more Linux administrators as opposed to the SuperCluster which uses Solaris and there are not as many people that use Solaris.

The automation and provisioning of the environment, as well as the centralized monitoring, have all improved over the years.

The solution is prone to disk failures. This needs to improve. Over the past four years we've had to replace about six of them. They've failed almost every three to six months. 

The solution would benefit from the addition of real-time physical monitoring, like noting the temperature of the actual physical machine. The console should be able to tell you if it's overheating right away. Right now, it's not really in real-time. If I take my own temperature measurement versus what the console tells me, I find that my readings are more accurate than on the console itself.

Oracle Engineered Systems are the best solution for Oracle and non-Oracle applications: hardware and software are combined together to ensure high availability and maximum performance. Oracle Exadata contains all the advantages of standard Oracle Database, but on top of that there are exclusive features such as IORM (IO Resource Manager) and HCC (Hybrid Columnar Compression). IORM (in combination with Database Resource Manager (DBRM)) permits you to isolate I/O requests to avoid I/O saturation. HCC provides different levels of compression to reduce space allocation and to decrease I/O.

Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic are standard-based. Customers can easily migrate their existing applications based on Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic: they can take advantages of Engineered Systems with minimal effort during the migration process. Customers can benefit from high performance without modifying Java or SQL code and they can decide to use specific features after migrating to Exadata/Exalogic. Also, Engineered Systems can be used to consolidate complex environments: for example, our customer was able to decommission about 20 blades, using a single 1/8 Exalogic x4-2. Finally, Exadata and Exalogic simplifies patching/upgrading process, unifying firmware upgrades, ILOM upgrades, OS patching, Database/WebLogic upgrade/patching in one "single-vendor" activity.