Oracle Exadata vs. Oracle Exalogic

• First, get the database on Oracle. If you are in an Oracle stack, it would be much better to use the Oracle products. If you are driving a Ferrari, you wouldn’t put a Mercedes engine in it. If you are writing a query, you cannot rely on other brands. Since I'm an architect, when I look for a product, I look for performance.
• The installation is easy because it comes out-of-the-box and you just start using it.
• Previous to Oracle Exadata, we were using a normal Oracle RAC service. We were just waiting for this product to come out.
• I'm currently writing a data warehouse on Exadata. Before this solution, we were aiming for this to be completed by 8 a.m., when our ETLs would finish. With the help of Exadata's special features, this was reduced to 3 a.m. This solution allows us to bring more data within the same time period. It provides us with more subject areas that provide more reports to our users. Our ETL times reduced to 65%, then to 50%.

Incentivized

Oracle Exalogic in conjunction with an Oracle Exadata based platform is what I would consider the best of breed solution; however the performance may be overkill for what you need. Don't spend the money unless you need the performance, Oracle offers other solutions at a much lower cost. Purchase what you need not what's the shiny new product.

Incentivized

• Customize-able for specific functionality optimized for combination of online transaction or analytical processing.
• Ability to serve mix workloads with resource management feature enables prioritizing allocation for certain workload.
• Scale-able on-premise with compatibility for cloud deployment offers flexible solution for organization considering to transition from on-premise solution.

Incentivized

• Private Cloud: in the virtual configuration, you can create several accounts and assign different resources (vCPU, RAM, etc.) to several departments in your organization.
• SDP & Infiband: Oracle Exalogic can be connected to Oracle Exadata using Infiniband Fabric, to take advantage of high bandwidth and low latency network to connect Weblogic to Oracle Database.
• Standardization: Oracle Weblogic Server running on Oracle Exalogic is the same software running on a normal Linux machine, so you can easily move Java applications without changing it, and immediately benefit from the Exalogic Optimizations.

Incentivized

• Patching can often become quite involved and convoluted. It should be more transparent and straightforward.
• Storage metrics can be difficult and time consuming to obtain.
• Basic administrative functions can be hard to repair when discovered.
• Vendor support can take a while to obtain. Generally several attempts are necessary to reach the right area of vendor expertise.

Incentivized

• Currently, the management of Exalogic is a little arcane. There is a good chance that Oracle can bring flexibility into the control stack because we have seen changes with each version of the software Echo was an improvement and foxtrot even more so. The ability to easily change VM shapes was another welcome change.
• Again the fact arises that to build a very high performance machine there will be idiosyncrasies and a certain amount of retraining may be required. I think this is one area where Exalogic lacks not as a product but as a solution is that there isn't as much good knowledge available about it as there is for other engineered systems.
• The Exalogic default setup could do with an SSD storage option, currently the onboard comes with a spinning disk.

Incentivized

It is a very condensed version of what used to be rows of servers. I like that storage, networking and compute nodes fit in one rack. The power and the software are top notch. The only problem is cost. You need to do some serious processing to get the true value out of the Exalogic system.

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

It's hard to compare Oracle Exalogic Engineered Systems with anything else on the market. It's so purpose built for application performance and intended to be used in conjunction with other Oracle Engineered Systems. As I alluded to earlier in this review the cost may not be worth the investment if the performance isn't needed. Oracle offers other solutions like the Oracle PCA which will meet the need for licensing compliance at a much lower cost of ownership and may fit better into your current infrastructure.

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

• Increase stability and performance of Weblogic Server applications.
• Platinum Support: the patching process is simplified because storage/firmware/OS/binaries are patched in the same time by the same vendor.
• Cost savings for hardware maintenance.

Incentivized