If you have a smaller business and you're concerned about your IT spending, then you have a lot of other options, such as Vertica and Greenplum. All these are also good data warehouse solutions.

We did look at SAP before ultimately choosing Oracle. We may have looked at others, however, it was a long time ago. I'm not even sure if the same companies exist.

Ultimately, we chose Oracle as it was more suited for telecommunications whereas SAP was more into manufacturing.

Initially, we compared Oracle Exadata to the existing HP servers. As an appliance, Oracle Exadata includes everything, storage, hardware, and servers, so you get better performance from one vendor.

For us, we work with all vendors and every vendor has its good and bad qualities. We use all solutions and hence we know when to recommend the Exadata machine.

In general, our customers are generally interested in Exadata. But, there are cases where the power of Exadata is just too much. Especially when the databases are not so big and when the transaction counts are low.

From an Oracle perspective, our customers also evaluate the Oracle Database Appliance (ODA). The decision is made according to the needs. If ODA is not enough for the customer’s needs, they consider Exadata.

We had a custom solution and evaluated Exadata versus the custom solution. Exadata was actually a cheaper solution due to the number of cores. Oracle software licenses are based on processor so if comparing a Quarter Rack versus a 4+ four node custom solution, Exadata may win out from this perspective. We were looking at a 5 node RAC which would have doubled the cost of our software licenses when compared to the equivalent with a Quarter rack of Exadata. Besides, the performance metrics indicated Exadata would easily outperform the custom solution which made our decision a no brainer.

We had already chosen Exadata, so we didn't compare this solution with many other products.

I evaluated IBM, the 15, to compare it with Oracle Exadata. I compared the processes and the process structure.

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated HPE HW including flash memory and SSD disks, but it was more expensive at that time.

Yes, we did evaluate Teradata, Netezza and Greenplum.

Yes. 1. Performance, 2. Scalability 3. Cost

ODAs.

A lot of our customers typically look at two other options. We have seen customers perform side-by-side evaluations by building their own high performance system with EMC/Pure Storage/Violin All Flash Array and UCS/HP/Dell blades or perform comparisons with a converged system such as VCE‘s Vblock. Customers typically ask for a proof-of-concept demo and run performance benchmarks with their own database and application to see the immediate impact and value-add for their organization. Our last 3 customers have compared Exadata with the Vblock.

Compared to other solutions, Oracle Exadata is more valuable because it has excellent features and it's a one-box solution.

We had tried other storage and hardware options but nothing really got us performance we needed for some of our applications. We migrated applications from AIX to Linux VM and Exadata. The most critical or resource intensive applications go to Exadata.

The replacement hardware was ironically Sun. Because Oracle procured Sun, they just became our natural progression.

When I’m choosing a vendor to work with, I look at the reliability of the actual hardware solution itself and then also the support. Even though tech support has not been very good for us, our Oracle reps have stayed with us and want us to be successful. They help us try and navigate the Oracle waters.

I've looked at other options. For a data warehouse, it's a better solution. It's better than Teradata, for example, or other complex machines from the competitors. Migrating data warehouses from other infrastructures to Exadata has a good success rate. I wouldn't say that it is the better solution for an OLTP system, however, for an OLAP system, it's a better option.

We also evaluated Postgress.

We've mostly been using Oracle for our systems, however, we do use MySQL for our verification. 

We evaluated EMC and SSD storage arrays.

We also looked at Microsoft SQL. We chose Exadata as we have other Oracle products, including Database.

It is quite difficult really to compare and evaluate all the solutions available. The market is pretty mature. We have to just make a shortlist of possible solutions from whatever products and solutions we are looking at and go from there. It is not realistic to do an in-depth analysis of everything.  

A lot of solutions that are more oriented toward network monitoring are now rebranded. The markets itself was previously called anomaly detection systems. Sometimes it is not quite clear which of the solutions really have additional capabilities that can make a difference without really studying them in-depth. We obviously looked at some extra products to contemplate and compare, and we continue to. But, for now, what we see and what we decided is where we will be staying. I am not sure that any product really offers a significant upgrade that is worth migrating for.  

Darktrace is a step ahead in some ways but, in this area, it is really difficult to assess clearly because there is a lot of the marketing fog. It is sometimes quite difficult to get to the facts about the advantages. It also may not be worth migrating when the product you are using will develop the same or similar capabilities.  

We compared other market players of Engineered systems. However, Oracle Exadata features are unmatched by other players in the market.

We evaluated SAP HANA and other relevant platform for analytics.

In the past, we were looking at EMC solutions; the flash, the different disks and so on. It still wasn't able or capable to function the way that the Exadata does. That's why Exadata won out, but Exadata could probably improve itself by using some of that state-of-the-art flash in the product more. They could even improve on the design by using more up-to-date disks and technologies, that are out there now.

When I’m selecting a vendor such as Oracle the most important criteria for me are reputation, stability, performance; that kind of criteria.

We explored Teradata, Cisco and EMC appliances.

The customer looked at a Hitachi solution.

No, we were pretty much decided on Exadata from the outset.

IBM POWER, SAP HANA, VCE Vblock and Teradata.

We also looked at other organizations or vendors, as well. We also looked at the database appliance from Oracle.

We decided to go with the Exadata product because of the size of our company.

No other options were looked at.

• IBM
• HP

We evaluated EMC Storage and Greenplum.

We also looked at Teradata, but Exadata is perfect.

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options. This was a CIO decision and we went with Exadata.

I was not involved in any before evaluation process.

We're constantly looking at other products. We went with Exadata because we needed some muscle on the back end for an ERP implementation. We've been through Exadata first-generation, and right now we're putting in X6s. We've had X2s, X3s, X4s, and we're actually installing X6s right now as we lifecycle through.

We're constantly looking at other products.

We ultimately chose Exadata because we needed some muscle on the back end for an ERP implementation. We've been through Exadata first generation, and right now we're putting in X6s. We've had X2s, X3s, X4s, and we're actually installing X6s right now as we lifecycle through.

No other options were available in this category at that time or even now.

A combination of pure flash storage and T4-4 servers are also extremely good in terms of latency times. It matches your TPS (transactions per second). Oracle had a little bit of an edge in terms of the best practices. Also, it's easier to debug and give us a solution because they can replicate the same issue in their environment. These are some of the slight advantages that Oracle Exadata has in terms of providing a solution more efficiently and quickly.

If I were a customer and I had to choose, honestly there's only two other solutions out there, either VMware or Oracle VM. I think Hyper-V is too narrow-focused, so it would be out of my choices.

Again, if I wanted to choose between the two, if I'm not already a VMware customer, I would definitely go Oracle VM, especially when I run Oracle products already. Oracle databases, or middleware stuff.

I think it's just given me a better customer experience, one vendor to go to for support, one vendor to get patches. I believe that they can offer better integrations in the future. At least that's what I'm hoping for.

Capacity Planning is Key

We also evaluated Superdome. We decided to go with the Oracle product because we are an Oracle shop. Oracle has intelligence on what it's doing. It integrates really well.

We looked at Fusion I/O, but Exadata Storage was so much faster.

Our short list was HP and IBM. We went with Oracle because we needed a unified solution like Exadata. No one else could provide a solution with this performance, for us.

No.

We looked at a custom-built solution.

No issues encountered.

Yes, we looked at Hyper-Converged Systems and UCS compute with
All-Flash-Arrays. And we did buy those systems for specific applications
that didn’t fit the Exadata solution.

It is a new level of server designed for Oracle database software, so you cannot find any other options with Exadata storage software.