Oracle is getting into the hardware game with Hewlett-Packard. Introduced at Oracle OpenWorld, The HP Oracle Database Machine and the HP Oracle Exadata Programmable Storage Server are an advanced database server and a programmable storage server, respectively).
Both products address the issue of speed, specifically data transfer rates. Traditionally, servers begin to slow its transfer rates as the database exceeds the 1 terabyte size. And, as more data is stored, the speed exponentially decreases until it comes to a near halt. Both new HP Oracle servers solve the issue by using Intel multi-core microprocessors next to each disk drive. The processors act as a “filter” by searching each drive simultaneously when there is a data query and only the specific information requested will be sent.
The HP Oracle Database Machine has a grid of eight database servers with 64 Intel processor cores and a grid of 14 Exadata servers with up to 168 Terabytes of combined data storage. It comes with a pre-configured Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition tools and Oracle Real Application Clusters. Remember: If you use the EE or Clusters, you need to license it for use. The Database Machine is priced at $4000 per terabyte of storage, plus the database license cost. So, in a full configuration, this translates to $1.5 million to $2 million in software licensing costs. By the way, a very important point, The HP Oracle Database Machine only works with Oracle databases.
The Exadata has two, 4-core microprocessors with up to 12 terabytes of storage capacity, InfiniBand connectivity and 1 GByte per second of data bandwidth per storage server.
It’s not surprise that HP is the partner of choice as the two companies have shared a long, comfortable relationship. HP will manufacture, deliver and service the actual hardware, while Oracle will be responsible for the sales and system support.
HP Integrity customers will receive advantageous pricing on their Oracle software. Oracle will also extend licensing support for HP Virtual Server Environment’s partitioning technologies.