Oracle saved the biggest news for last at its OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. CEO Larry Ellison took the stage Wednesday afternoon to announce two hardware products developed with Hewlett-Packard that are designed to provide very high performance for data warehousing applications.
Calling them "Oracle's first hardware products," Ellison introduced the HP Oracle Database Machine and the HP Oracle Exadata Storage Server, which are preconfigured server racks including Oracle software and HP ProLiant servers.
[ For more news from Oracle OpenWorld 2008, check out InfoWorld's special report. ]
The Exadata Storage Server includes a dozen disk drives and two quad-core Intel processors that are used to perform database query operations on the storage equipment itself, reducing the amount of data that has to be shuttled back to the database server. This gives a 10-fold performance boost compared to Oracle's current data warehouse products, according to Ellison.
"The storage system itself runs the Oracle database's fast parallel query software, so we took the capability you normally find in the database servers and moved it into the storage server next to each and every disk drive," Ellison said.
"We're taking a tremendous load off the interconnect between the server and the storage grid, returning just the query results instead of whole data blocks. It makes a huge difference," he added.
The storage servers can be ordered separately for use with an existing Oracle data warehouse, or as part of the HP Oracle Database Machine, which includes eight Oracle database servers and 14 Exadata Storage Servers in one rack. The database servers include 64 Intel processor cores, Oracle's business intelligence software and its Real Application Clusters technology.
Each storage server is connected to the database server with two InfiniBand pipes. Each can carry data at 20Gbps, but the speed of the system is limited to the speed of the disk drives, which limit the throughput speed to 1Gbps, Ellison said. The Storage Servers include up to 168TB of storage, he said.
Ever the showman, Ellison chuckled with delight as he stood next to one of the hulking Database Machines on stage. Joking about the storage capacity, he quipped, "This is 1,400 times larger than Apple's largest iPod."
The Linux version of the Database Machine is available immediately, he said, with support for other operating systems to follow. He said the Exadata Storage Server will work with "any Oracle database server," suggesting customers won't have to be using the current 11g version for their data warehouse.
The Database Machine is priced at $4,000 per terabyte of storage, plus the database license costs, Oracle said. The systems can be ordered from Oracle, and Oracle will be responsible for sales and support, while HP will handle the delivery and servicing of the hardware.
As Oracle enters the hardware game, data in the enterprise "is proliferating at astonishingly high rates," Ellison said.
"That creates a fundamental problem. The disk storage systems that are available today ... can store 10, 100TB of data, but they can't move that data off the disks and into the database servers very fast," he said.
This whitepaper explains the terminology and concepts behind Data Replication technologies and establishes some sizing rules through worked examples. Learn the new paradigm in disaster tolerance—protect data anywhere.
Download now »
Server virtualization is a popular option for dealing with mounting datacenter costs. Another equally promising approach is the use of an Application Delivery Controller. Citrix NetScaler provides a low-cost way for organizations to reduce their server count and accrue cost savings from a reduction in space, cooling, power and personnel.
Download now »
The emergence of WLANs has created a new breed of security threats to enterprise networks.
Included in HP ProCurve WLAN solutions is security technology that alleviates threats from WLANs through:
* Monitoring wireless activity inside and out of the enterprise
* Classifying WLAN transmissions into harmful and harmless
* Preventing transmissions that pose a security threat to the enterprise network
* Locating participating devices for physical remediation
Effectively address data protection challenges, implementing solutions that help store and protect business–critical data while cutting costs and improving efficiency and reliability.
Download now »
Sign up to receive Hardware Resource Alerts
5 Recommendations
