Oracle Announces Oracle Database Appliance

Oracle has announced a new product, the "Oracle Database Appliance," or ODA (pronounced oh-duh) as I like to call it.  Enkitec has been fortunate enough to get our hands on a test box.  Be sure to check out my post on a deep dive (LINK GOES HERE) inside the ODA.

The gist of the ODA is that it's a small RAC (though RAC isn't required) in a box.  Contrary to the rumors, it's not a "mini-Exadata" as some people have speculated.  As you would expect, there's no capability for smart scans.  The ODA does build on one of Exadata's big advantages, the rapid installation time.  Compared to a typical Oracle installation, there is so much time lost in the process of getting a server ready for an Oracle database.  On typical installations, the following things have to be done before a system is ready:

• racking and cabling the system to power and network
• connecting servers to the SAN
• allocating LUNs on the SAN
• installing the operating system
• configuring the operating system for Oracle database use (kernel and memory settings)
• mounting LUNs from the SAN and ensuring multipathing

With the ODA, you only have to perform the first task.  Everything else is taken care of.  The OS is installed and optimized, storage connected, and multipathing configured.  It may not sound like much, but how many projects have you seen delayed because the SAN switch wasn't zoned correctly, etc?

While many people will say that this machine doesn't appeal to a mass market, there are plenty of Oracle shops that could use a system with 12-24 cores and 4TB of usable space.  It's not built to be a data warehouse or OLTP beast...just a really solid machine with plenty of redundancy running an Oracle database.