IBM Analytics Engine vs. Oracle Exadata

• Well suited for my big data related project or a static data set analysis especially for uploading huge dataset to the cluster.
• But had some issues with connecting IoT real-time data and feeding to Power BI. It might be my understanding please take it as a mere comment rather than a suggestion.

Incentivized

Oracle Exadata is well-suited for environments where massive performance for Oracle databases is required. Storage indexes reduce the unnecessary I/O. Smart Flash
Cache accelerates random reads/writes.

Our OLTP application demands very high concurrency. Multi-node Exadata provides high availability and zero downtime during DB patching. It comes with lots of built-in automations, so it reduces many routine tasks for sysadmins, like network, storage, and VM configuration, and it also reduces many Oracle DBA tasks, like Oracle software installation, patching, and upgrades.

Incentivized

• Jobs with Spark, Hadoop, or Hive queries are rapidly attained
• Can collect, organize and analyze your data accurately
• You can customize, for example, Spark or Hadoop configuration settings, or Python, R, Scala, or Java libraries.

Incentivized

• Oracle Database : Deliver industry-leading security, high availability and scalability with Oracle Database, which has been significantly enhanced to take advantage of the Oracle Exadata Storage Servers.
• Exadata Smart Scan : Improve query performance by offloading intensive query processing and data mining scoring to scalable intelligent storage servers.
• Smart Flash Cache : Transparently cache 'hot' read and write data to fast solid-state storage, improving query response times and throughput. Exadata systems use the latest PCI flash technology rather than flash disks. PCI flash delivers ultra-high performance by placing flash directly on the high speed PCI bus rather than behind slow disk controllers.
• Hybrid Columnar Compression : Reduce the size of data warehousing tables by 10x, and archive tables by 50x, to improve performance and lower storage costs for primary, standby, and backup databases. Query high, query low, archive high and archive low.
• Infiniband Network : Connect multiple Oracle Exadata Database Machines using the InfiniBand fabric to form a larger single system image configuration. Each InfiniBand link provides 40 Gigabits of bandwidth–many times higher than traditional storage or server networks.
• Petabyte Scalability : Easily scale data warehouse to support enterprise data growth.

Incentivized

• Easier pricing and plug-and-play like you see with AWS and Azure, it would be nice from a budgeting and billing standpoint, as well as better support for the administration.
• Bundling of the Cloud Object Storage should be included with the Analytics Engine.
• The inability to add your own Hadoop stack components has made some transfers a little more complex.

Incentivized

• The process of patching and upgrade of Exadata server components could be improved with a goal to minimize the overall effort, make it fully automated and transparent.
• Improved guidelines and possibly more sophisticated tools for sizing of new Exadata servers for migration from old legacy hardware.

Incentivized

I am comparing Exadata with the Oracle RAC database experience. In addition to Oracle RAC features, Exadata provides automatic performance optimization through Smart Scan and storage indexes. Deep integration with the Oracle ecosystem and tight coupling with Oracle Enterprise Manager
for monitoring and management. Some downsides of Exadata are: a steep learning curve, concepts like cell offloading, IORM, and flash cache behavior aren’t intuitive initially. Operating
Exadata requires specialized DBA skills.

Incentivized

We initially wanted to go with Google BigQuery, mainly for the name recognition. However, the pricing and support structure led us to seek alternatives, which pointed us to IBM. Apache Spark was also in the running, but here IBM's domination in the industry made the choice a no-brainer. As previously stated, the support received was not quite what we expected, but was adequate.

Incentivized

Oracle Exadata Database Machine had the best performance overall hands down. It clearly beat the competition and we were seeing 1000X improvement on SAP HANA. Oracle Exadata Database Machine beat that without us refactoring our code. To achieve that in HANA, we had to refactor the code somewhat. Now this was for our limited POC of 5 use cases. Given the large number of stored procedures we had in Sybase, we need to capture more production metrics but we are seeing incredible performance.

Incentivized

• This product has allowed us to gather analytics data across multiple platforms so we can view and analyze the data from different workflows, all in one place.
• IBM Analytics has allowed us to scale on demand which allows us to capture more and more data, thus increasing our ROI.
• The convenience of the ability to access and administer the product via multiple interfaces has allowed our administrators to ensure that the application is making a positive ROI for our business users and partners.

Incentivized

• Single support from a single vendor with both machine and database from Oracle, which is costing us less.
• With Exadata, we need less technical manpower and less technical support. A business transaction with the integrated and centralized database helps us focus on other business needs.
• We don't need to buy additional licenses and Hardware for the next 3 to 5 years.

Incentivized