On the whole, SuperCluster is a smart, sophisticated machine, and when I look into the performance of it, I'm happy. However, in some cases, the system itself is somewhat larger than necessary for our environment, and can be considered underutilized when we only have minimal amounts of data to process.

I would rate Oracle SuperCluster a seven out of ten.

It's a really good product.

At this time, we are still using it and there are no plans to change it that I am aware of.

It depends on the plans of the company and what they want to do in the next three to five years.

I would rate Oracle SuperCluster a seven out of ten.

I rate the product an eight out of ten. 

When you look at SuperCluster's complete infrastructure as a whole and the fact that we can run the database and application all on the same infrastructure, I feel that SuperCluster is a better solution than most. It has good performance and works well for us.

Given that they have stopped upgrading and supporting SuperCluster, I am hoping that Oracle will be able to provide a similar type of solution with the same integrated infrastructure but with better performance in the future. I know there is a solution called PCA (Private Cloud Appliance), but this doesn't have the Exadata functionality that we need.

I would rate Oracle SuperCluster an eight out of ten.

Unfortunately, I have not had the best experience with Oracle’s SuperCluster. Zones were rebooting at random due to Clusterware bugs, there were various ZFS issues resulting in performance decreases and node evictions and, I’m sad to say, we did not receive the strongest vendor support in resolving the issues.

Do due diligence on sizing and whether or not the solution is, in fact, fit for purpose.

I would rate it as a seven out of 10. The reason it doesn't get a higher mark is because of the challenges in integrating it with other infrastructure in our datacenter. If it's not Oracle, it's more of a challenge to integrate with it. That is unfortunate because we have a heterogeneous infrastructure environment where we have many brands and models of infrastructure. Ideally, we would want to utilize everything and not have the solution be isolated and not able to talk to anything else. So interoperability is a really big benefit for us. And the SuperCluster has some limitations in that regard.

In terms of advice to a colleague, again, the important aspect is the interoperability with other brands of hardware, like for storage and for network and for databases and so on. If you have a need to connect to a lot of stuff, you should perhaps look at other systems as well, not just Oracle SuperCluster, because it's very Oracle focused.

The biggest hurdle is getting all of the power and networking requirements in place in front of the purchase. Once you purchase, expect at least 12 weeks to have everything in place before you can actually begin implementing the SuperCluster. The SuperCluster will arrive, but all of the other infrastructure components will have to be placed before that can happen.

• Initial planning, such as network IP assignment (range), mandatory power/cooling/switch availability for a smooth installation

It's important to realize that this is a big system for enterprise companies and not suitable for small business.

I would rate this product an eight out of 10. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

My advice to someone considering this solution is to do your homework before switching to this solution. Look at what the solution offers, look at the licensing because we might think that doing the Oracle SuperCluster would actually reduce the licensing. It is not like that. 

The staff should also know what kind of issues to expect so as to be able to actually work with them to be able to work with the SuperCluster. The staff should be trained to identify issues. 

I would rate SuperCluster a six out of ten.