IBM Z vs. Oracle Exadata

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Z
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
IBM Z is the company's mainframe enterprise server solution product line.N/A
Oracle Exadata
Score 9.8 out of 10
N/A
Oracle Exadata is an enterprise database platform that runs Oracle Database workloads of any scale and criticality with high performance, availability, and security. Exadata’s scale-out design employs optimizations that let transaction processing, analytics, machine learning, and mixed workloads run faster. Consolidating diverse Oracle Database workloads on Exadata platforms in enterprise data centers, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), and multicloud environments helps organizations increase…
$2.90
Per Unit
Pricing
IBM ZOracle Exadata
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Database Server
$2.9032
Per Unit
Quarter Rack
$14.5162
Per Unit
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM ZOracle Exadata
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM ZOracle Exadata
Features
IBM ZOracle Exadata
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
IBM Z
-
Ratings
Oracle Exadata
9.2
3 Ratings
2% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings7.62 Ratings
Data Modeling
Comparison of Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
IBM Z
-
Ratings
Oracle Exadata
10.0
1 Ratings
8% above category average
Data model creation00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Data Exploration
Comparison of Data Exploration features of Product A and Product B
IBM Z
-
Ratings
Oracle Exadata
7.0
1 Ratings
5% below category average
Visualization00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Data Warehouse
Comparison of Data Warehouse features of Product A and Product B
IBM Z
-
Ratings
Oracle Exadata
9.3
3 Ratings
11% above category average
High-Volume Data Processing00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Data Warehouse Management00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Administrative Automation00 Ratings7.93 Ratings
Self-Optimization00 Ratings9.13 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM ZOracle Exadata
Small Businesses
Dell PowerEdge
Dell PowerEdge
Score 8.1 out of 10
Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
HPE ProLiant DL
HPE ProLiant DL
Score 8.6 out of 10
Cloudera Enterprise Data Hub
Cloudera Enterprise Data Hub
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Power
IBM Power
Score 9.0 out of 10
Cloudera Enterprise Data Hub
Cloudera Enterprise Data Hub
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM ZOracle Exadata
Likelihood to Recommend
9.6
(42 ratings)
10.0
(23 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
4.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.9
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM ZOracle Exadata
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
Most of the time, server utilization is reliable and stable during peak times. Truly amazing, this product offers a lot and gets it done in no time without any confusion.It is reliable, too accurate and the performance is top-notch. It seems to be competitive in all virtual energy systems and its connectivity is also good. It's available at a low cost, but it's enough to have as many low-cost, more efficient systems as possible. It's a minor thing, but very rarely, it can cause work interruptions while it can get stuck due to more frequent use such as restless work. These power servers are very efficient and really help when things go wrong. I am using this product to retrieve data much faster.
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Oracle
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.
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Pros
IBM
  • Virtualization for Scale-Out and Scale-Up in the same footprint
  • Security for different workloads: Large Confidential Computing and lightweight Secure Execution
  • Performance is a true game changer: extreme throughput powered by amazingly huge caches.
  • The one and only FIPS 140-2 Level 4 HSM on this planet
  • Quantum Safe Encryption NOW!
  • AI infusion to every transaction
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Oracle
  • 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.
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Cons
IBM
  • It would be good if IBM could demonstrate more use cases for Z to potential clients
  • A migration strategy from Open Systems to Z would be helpful
  • Any additional marketing to could explain the benefits of Z/Linux, especially now that RedHat is in the mix.
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Oracle
  • 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.
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Likelihood to Renew
IBM
The IBM Z mainframe capabilities are unmatched for cloud readiness and optimization the learning capabilities are matched perfectly with Watson and the expandability of the cloud makes it a perfect choice.
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Usability
IBM
Once you learn how, it easy. It's different than most other systems
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Oracle
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.
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Reliability and Availability
IBM
The Z in IBM Z is for zero down time. If you configure your system according to IBM's best practices, you can achieve zero downtime
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Performance
IBM
Performance is a major part when you configure your system. IBM has many tools to study your system and suggest the appropriate configuration. With the right contract, you can add processing power dynamically and remove it when no longer needed
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
IBM
Support is usually superb, only occasionally dropping to very good. We participate in some of the CD (Continuous Delivery) aspects of z/OS, IMS, MQ, and DB2.
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
In-Person Training
IBM
Over my 33 years on this platform, I attended many in person courses, conferences, and other training opportunities.
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Online Training
IBM
There are many online courses from both IBM and other vendors. Most are great. All of the documentation is available online.
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
IBM
I do not personally have any key insights regarding implementation of IBM Z Enterprise Servers as that is what our mainframe architects do.
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
IBM
IBM Z is the best storage solution as it provides the best in class data protection with the cryptographic hardware keys, no loss in data while migration, and a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for develops to understand and has less of a learning curve. This makes it well above the competition.
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Oracle
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.
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Scalability
IBM
If you need more processing power, just add more CPU's or memory. The largest system can have close to 200 CPU's and 40 TB of memory. If that is not enough, you can add more physical computers, and connect them using a sysplex
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
IBM
  • With IBM Z we really feel a different positive impact on our company. A trustworthy and the most powerful place we have ever.
  • A unique computing platform that helps a lot for the progress of our company.
  • It keeps our data save, encrypted.
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Oracle
  • 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.
Read full review
ScreenShots

IBM Z Screenshots

Screenshot of IBM z17™ single-frame 

This configuration is optimized for enhanced modularity and is available in a traditional factory-frame setup. It provides advanced capabilities and is ideal for environments requiring a robust and scalable solution within an industry-standard footprint.  

IBM z17™ single-frame 

This configuration is optimized for enhanced modularity and is available in a traditional factory-frame setup. It provides advanced capabilities and is ideal for environments requiring a robust and scalable solution within an industry-standard footprint.Screenshot of IBM z17™ multi-frame 

This configuration is designed for general-purpose use, offering a balance of performance, scalability and security suitable for a wide range of applications.Screenshot of IBM z17™ rack mount 

This rack-mounted configuration allows for installation in existing data center rack infrastructures, providing flexibility and integration with current systems. It combines IBM Z's strengths with the convenience of modern rack-mounted hardware.