Saturday 24 December 2016

History Of Exadata



Exadata was first launched in the year 2008 and it was names as Exadata V1. Since then Exadata has undergone many significant changes.

In this article I will give a quick overview of Exadata history and changes made in each of the model.

         V1
     First Exadata model released in 2008
     It was a combination of HP hardware + Oracle Software
     Exclusively for Data Warehouse workload
     There were too many hardware failures noticed in this model
     Working with Hardware issues was not easy as it involved multiple vendors
     There was no Flash in this version
     Major problem with V1 was the cabinet gets overheated. You can fry Eggs on the cabinetJ

         V2
     V2 was released in 2009
     Combination of Sun hardware and Oracle Software
     Flash Cache was introduced for the first time in V2
     Caches data intelligently on Flash Cache
     Faster components and used solid state disks
     More than just Data Warehouse

             X2
     X2 is the third version of Exadata and it was released in 2010
     This time the naming changed to X series
     Introduced two variants X2-2 and X2-8
     Introduced Exadata Storage Expansion for addition storage capacity
     Faster components and increased capacity (CPU, memory and disk)

         X3
     X3 was released in 2012
     Named as “In-Memory Database machines”
     Introduced Exadata Eight Rack configuration
     Increased Flash cache
     Introduced write back flash cache
     Faster components and increased capacity
     Increased High Capacity disk Size from 2TB to 3TB
     Introduced new Software feature Write-Back Flash Cache


         X4
     It was released in 2013
     Introduced Xeon processors
     Physical memory can be expanded up to 512GB on Compute nodes
     Doubled Flash Cache
     Increased High Performance disk size from 600GB to 1.2TB
     Increased High Capacity disk size from 3TB to 4TB
     Introduced Active/Active Infiniband network connection
  
         X5
     It was released in 2015
     Uses 2-socket CPU
     Physical memory can be expanded up to 768GB on Compute nodes
     Introduced OVM
     Introduced Extreme Flash Cache servers
     Introduced Elastic Exadata configuration
     High performance disk are removed in favor of Extreme Flash Cache servers
     Doubled flash cache and used NVMe


         X6
     X6 was released in 2016
     Increase Flash cache
     Faster components and increased capacity
     Also available in Public Cloud
     Ideal for DBaas

The diagram below gives you an overview of the Exadata hardware evolution.

Conclusion


In this article we have learned the history of Exadata. We have seen how Exadata has undergone significant changes since it’s launched in the year 2008. 

3 comments:

  1. Very informative article on EXADATA.
    Thanks for sharing this information.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Memory for x6 now is double that of x5 i.e 1.5 Tb per server max mem avaiable.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes you can grow upto 1.5TB on X6-2

      X5-2: 256GB Memory (expandable to 768GB)
      X6-2: 256GB Memory (expandable to 1.5TB)

      Delete

Comparing Oracle Database Appliance X8-2 Model Family

September 2019 Oracle announced Oracle Database Appliance X8-2 (Small, Medium and HA). ODA X8-2 comes with more computing resources com...