RE: Oracle database appliance X4-2

I would agree with everything Fuad has already expressed in his email. I'm also adding my comments below; hope they help.  

1. How does it perform?

The ODA is an engineered system. Oracle has designed it to perform pretty well. Using I/O Calibration in testing an ODA I have seen a great deal if IOPs pushed through the system. Overall performance will be based on you database logical architecture and application requirements for access the data.  

2. Does it meet your expectations?  

Everyone's expectations vary based on what the end usage of the ODA is for. Customers where I have installed them, love them for the speed and compact design. When it comes to expectations of installations, the ODA can be up and running within a few hours.  

3. Was it as quick to setup as Oracle says? How long to setup in your shop?  

Setup times vary depending what experience you have in setting up an ODA. From bare-metal to functioning database, I've seen it between 4-6 hours (no data). Importing your data; the timing will vary depending on the method to move the data. For real-time migrations, would recommend GoldenGate; outside of that Export/Import works pretty well.  

4. How seamless is patching through the appliance manager?  

What type of patching? There is ODA specific patching and there is normal database patching. I know most customers I've talked with usually wait for ODA specific patch to make the process easy. For an additional cost, Oracle will do the patching for you.  

5. How frequently are you replacing disks?  

I can't really tell you how often disks will be replaced because I've only installed them for customers. After I leave a site, it is up to the client to monitor and replace when needed.  

6. Quality of support from oracle on appliance issues?  

Quality of service for engineered systems has been pretty good in my experience.  

7. gotchas?  

The gotchas are the reason why myself and a few other authors (including Fuad) decided to publish a book by Apress called the Practical Oracle Database Appliance. When we decided to write the book, it was to give users, like yourself, the knowledge to understand and work around the gotchas. I'm sure this will come off as a shameless plug, but that is the real reason why the authors of the book wrote it. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1430262656/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d28_i1?pf_rd
_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

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_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=05V9PQRNY8H1DHPZ1HRV&pf_rd_t=101&p
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I hope this answers all your questions. If you need anything else feel free to ask.    

Regards,  

Bobby Curtis

Senior Technical Consultant

Enkitec

 <http://www.enkitec.com> http://www.enkitec.com

 <http://dbasolved.com/> http://dbasolved.com        

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Fuad Arshad
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2014 1:56 PM
To: anthonycsanchez_at_gmail.com; oracle-l Subject: Re: Oracle database appliance X4-2  

Anthony .

I've implemented about 50+ ODA's in the last 2 years for my previous company and can definitely speak to some of the things that you ask,  

1. how does it perform?

Performs pretty darn good but it depends on your db usage

Does it meet your expectations?

If there is a right design and understanding yes it did

Was it as quick to setup as Oracle says? How long to setup in your shop?

from plug in to db there in 4 hrs was my first experience . We had 4 ODA's up in 3 days . here was a blog post that i did http://www.fuadarshad.com/2012/02/oracle-database-appliance-experience.html

How seamless is patching through the appliance manager?

The patching is seamless but does require downtime in some cases

How frequently are you replacing disks?

It seems like its been varied i've had a couple of ODA's where we had no disk replacements for a whole year and a couple where we had 2 disk replacements in a year.

Quality of support from oracle on appliance issues?

Pretty good and a one stop shop support

gotchas?

Look for the IOPS. if you have an I/O bound application make sure it scales within the realm of the ODA. ODA is limited to Disk on the ODA and one storage expansion. Make sure you look at your growth patterns accordingly.  

And last a plug for our book that Just came out on the ODA.

http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Oracle-Database-Appliance-Curtis/dp/14302626 56  

P.S I now work for Oracle but the above is my experience with the product.|  

Fuad

From: anthony Sanchez <anthonycsanchez_at_gmail.com> To: oracle-l <Oracle-L_at_freelists.org> Sent: Monday, February 24, 2014 12:38 PM Subject: Oracle database appliance X4-2

Hi folks,  

We are looking to move a virtualized, memory and IO bound database from vmware to a physical machine with dedicated storage. We are considering the Oracle database appliance X4-2 (bare metal, no oracle vm, RAC).  

current env:

 vmware 5

RH 5.9

Oracle 11.2.0.3 with partitioning and advanced compression

~800GB

HP Left Hand San P4000 (three of them, RAID 10)

oracle license tied to an app with NO cpu restrictions

small overworked infrastructure team tired of hearing me complain about performance  

IO is currently our biggest issue as our SAN is not quite enterprise level and is heavily abused, especially by this db server. We are currently seeing ~30 millisecond latency on average. There are 35 vm's sitting on this SAN.  

I'd like to know if any other folks out there have any experience with this hardware and if so,  

how does it perform?

Does it meet your expectations?

Was it as quick to setup as Oracle says? How long to setup in your shop?

How seamless is patching through the appliance manager?

How frequently are you replacing disks?

Quality of support from oracle on appliance issues?

gotchas?

etc, etc  

Any feedback would be most appreciated.  

thanks!  

Anthony  

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