RE: Oracle Exadata Machine

Right, well, there's a couple of things to consider here:

• The storage architecture in the database machine is revolutionary for Oracle - it transparently pushes some query processing down to the storage itself. It also allows you to scale storage independent of processing throughput, something that Netezza does not
• While it's nice that Netezza offers custom ASICs and the like, a custom ASIC isn't necessarily faster than a flat-out Intel processor. Power consumption is probably lower, but when you consider the piece above about independently scaling processors vs. storage, it could balance out
• The opportunity cost of rewriting your system for a new data warehousing platform can be significant, not to mention the ongoing overhead of feeding data between systems. The database machine allows you to get comparable throughput to a Netezza machine while maintaining Oracle compatibility.

I like the Netezza folks, I knew some of the earlier founding members over there, no idea if any of them are still around. But the reality is that a very very fast RAC cluster with offloaded storage processing has a lot of advantages over a proprietary system.

As for looking at a standalone box, depending on the size you're looking at, between the cost of a, say, 16 processor HP-UX machine plus some high-end storage, I feel confident you can make a business case for a Netezza or an Oracle Database Machine.

Thanks,
Matt

-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Keith Moore Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 1:05 PM
To: Riyaj Shamsudeen
Cc: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: Re: Oracle Exadata Machine

Well, I did say "mostly". It's possible that "partially" is more accurate. I
don't have direct performance comparison between the two but would certainly
like to.

My point is that something designed from the ground up for a particular task
'should' perform better than something that is adapted from existing technology. Again, I can't say whether that is true in this case.

The Neteeza appliance is designed around modules with a CPU, custom ASIC chip
and hard drive. There are around 200 modules (could be more or less depending
on configuration), each processing 0.5% of the data and passing the results to
another CPU for consolidation.

To me that is a better architecture for certain types of applications. Then
there's the columnar database people (Vertica) that will tell you their architecture is better still.

Keith

>>> The customized hardware is built for that while Oracle's
architecture is
> mostly a
>>> reconfiguration of existing Oracle features such as RAC along with
new
> hardware.
>
> I must disagree with that statement. Exadata is lot more sophisticated
for
> such an oversimplified statement.

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