During his opening keynote address at Oracle OpenWorld, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison announced the Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine - the latest generation of its Oracle Exadata Database Machines - and a key component of the Oracle Cloud. The Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine provides significant performance improvements, implementing a mass memory hierarchy that automatically moves all active data into Flash and RAM memory, while keeping less active data on low-cost disks. Oracle also announced a new Eighth-Rack configuration for the Oracle Exadata X3-2 Database In-Memory Machine, in addition to the Full-Rack, Half-Rack, and Quarter-Rack, to bring the benefits of Exadata to a more affordable level for a broader set of use cases such as smaller workloads, testing, development and disaster recovery systems.
In addition to the Oracle Exadata X3-2 Database In-Memory Machine systems, the Oracle Exadata X3-8 Database In-Memory Machine systems are available in a Full-Rack configuration, and both X3 systems enable multi-rack configurations.
Overall, with the engineered systems, Oracle is answering a need to make thing simpler, Oracle president Mark Hurd emphasized during his keynote address on Monday, noting that they are easier for customers, offer better performance, and more effective for Oracle to support.
The Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machines use a combination of scale-out servers and storage, InfiniBand networking, smart storage, PCI Flash, smart memory caching, and Hybrid Columnar Compression to enable higher performance and availability for all Oracle Database Workloads.
Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine systems leverage next-generation technologies to deliver performance enhancements, including four times the Flash memory capacity of the previous generation; with up to 40% faster response times and 100 GB/second data scan rates. Combined with Exadata’s Hybrid Columnar Compression capabilities, hundreds of terabytes of user data can now be managed entirely within Flash, enabling 20 times more capacity for database writes through updated Exadata Smart Flash Cache software. In addition, the new Exadata Smart Flash Cache software also runs on previous-generation Exadata systems. There are 33% more database CPU cores in the Oracle Exadata X3-2 Database In-Memory Machine, using the latest 8-core Intel Xeon E5-2600 series of processors; and expanded 10Gb Ethernet connectivity to the data center in the Oracle Exadata X3-2 provides 40 10Gb network ports per rack for connecting users and moving data. The X3 machines also provide up to a 30% reduction in power and cooling.
Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine systems can be used immediately with any application certified with Oracle Database 11g R2 and Oracle Real Application Clusters, including SAP, Oracle Fusion Applications, Oracle’s PeopleSoft, Oracle’s Siebel CRM, the Oracle E-Business Suite, and thousands of other applications.