Oracle Exadata

Liveblogging announcements from Sunday’s Oracle OpenWorld Keynote.

It’s 5:36 PM now – stay tuned…

@fuadar: Exadata smoothie and java juice in moscone south #oow10

5:44pm: Larry couldn’t get his boat under the Golden Bridge — next yer he needs a smaller boat or rebuild the bridge? :)

5:50pm: Oracle Partners Specialization awards… oh well, why is Pythian not on stage with our 4 Specializations? :(

5:51pm: Wow… Ann Livermore, EVP of HP, is on stage… about HP Oracle partnership… I don’t supposed she will talk about Mark Hurd. :)

@gvwoods 40% of Oracle on HP

5:58pm: I was all pumped for Larry and getting bored now… come on already!

6:02pm: Hm… while HP is focused on services, I think Oracle’s strategy is to leverage partners for that. HP is pitching completely different approach then Oracle… and HP is talking about software they have… HP (h/w company) talks about their software at Oracle’s event (HP’s s/w partner)? Weird… Completely misaligned messaging!

06:07pm: @alexgorbachev: NOT INTERESTED in HP cloud solutions… audience is not even applauding – I hear snoring around… Give us Exalogic already!

06:07pm: Very interesting slides about HP storage – X9000 IBRIX (iBrick?) Indeed, NAS rocks for manageability

06:22pm: OK… pumping up again… I won’t be able to do it more than three times in a day! (my first pumped up state was at my presentation)

@paulvallee: KIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLL MEEEEEEEEEEEE #oow10

06:24pm: Damn… they did it again :( I was just getting excited… I wonder if there is any time left to announce anything. Is Larry sleeping or late by any chance?

06:28pm: @paulvallee: RT @DarylOrts: #oow10. 41,000 attendees: 36,236 are currently asleep. Thanks #hp.

06:36pm: Don’t know if I can be excited again… Trying really hard now… I think I manged – pumped up!

06:41pm: @oracleopenworld: OK, sorry for the false start, but here we go now #oow10 – Larry intro video and keynote NOW

@alexgorbachev: @oracleopenworld false starts like that can cause loosing a race! #oow10

06:45pm: Larry is out…

Larry clarifies what cloud computing it according to Oracle. Calls SalesForce.com an “old SaaS Technology” and Amazon EC2 — “Innovative”.

06:51pm: @RoelH: @paulvallee Exalogic is on the machine in Larry’s back. #oow10

So Oracle’s definition of cloud computing is pretty much what Amazon.
Heh… I think Larry just stole slides from my presentation on Thursday!

06:54pm: Finally, Exalogic Elastic Compute cloud:
* Virtualization
* InfiniBand 40Gbit – so as expected no InfiniBand upgrade
* High performance storage
* 30 severs in “the box” (he calls it a box!)
* 360 cores (12 cores per server – I’m sure that’s 2 x 6 cores CPUs – expect Exadata v3 database server to use the same)
* Super simple patching – yes we like it!
* Guest OS’s – Linux and Solaris x86 (yay – I knew that)
* Apps hosted – WebLogic, Coherence, JRockit
* Virtualization is Oracle VM

Exalogic – Speed, Utility, Availability, Scalable, Manageable, Secure

Exalogic delivers 1 million HTTP requests per second.

2.8TB DRAM
960GB Solid state disks
1.2 microsecond latency
10Gbe connecton to data-center
40TB SAS disk storage
4TB read cache
72GB write cache

Tech geekery: “Looks like WebLogic has now node affinity working via UCP (instead of JDBC drivers) connecting to Oracle RAC – it can keep same web connection on the same RAC node.”

Exalogic will consolidate all apps that Oracle delivers (I guess if they run on Linux of Solaris x86).

1 Exadata rack and 1 Exalogic rack can run the whole Facebook according to Larry. I have troubles believing this but that’s a nice bold comparison.

You know what… it’s enough – off to ACED dinner – need to be at Pier 40 by 8pm.

It’s Sunday morning early in San Francisco and the biggest ever Oracle OpenWorld is about to start. It looks like it’s also going to be the busiest ever OpenWorld for me — my schedule looks crazy and I still need to do the slides for my Thursday sessions (one on ASM and one on cloud computing). Fortunately, my slides for today’s presentation are all ready to go.

OK. Don’t let me carry away — I started this post with the intention to write about what I expect Oracle to announce at this OpenWorld and it seems like the most important announcements happen at tonight’s keynote. I hasn’t been at the Oracle ACE Directors briefing so unlike them, all I can say is pure speculation-based and my wishes of what should be covered. Actually, unlike them, I actually CAN say at least something. :)

1. Oracle Exadata Database Machine v3 (x2-8) — well, that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody by now. I fully expect upgrade of the hardware — new Intel CPUs (probably with more cores), more memory, possibly more flash (this technology moves really quick these days). Maybe 10GbE network can be introduced to address some of the customers demands but I don’t think it’s needed that much. InfiniBand might just stay as it is — I think there is enough throughput but Marc Fielding noted that moving InfiniBand to the next speed level shouldn’t be very expensive. Other then cosmetic upgrade, I believe that hardware architecture will largely stay the same — it works very well, it’s proven and very successful. Maybe something should be done to let customers integrate Exadata better into their data-centers — folks keep complaining of inflexibility (and I think Oracle should stay firm on this and don’t let customer screw themselves up but who knows).
   On the software side, I expect new Exadata Storage Software release announcement that will be able to offload more and more on the storage side. The concept of moving data intensive operation closed to the disks has proven to be very effective. I also expect to have more Exadata features for consolidation. If you didn’t notice, 11.2.0.2 database release few days ago has Exadata specific QoS (Quality of Service) feature. I think this is what’s going to make Exadata to be a killer consolidation platform for the databases — true private cloud for Oracle databases or a true grid as Oracle insists calling it’s private cloud idea. Speaking about software… hm — see Linux and Solaris below.
   And back to consolidation, there must be the new platform similar to Exadata that integrates Oracle hardware and software and that should fill the gap as a consolidation offering for anything else but databases — Fusion Middleware, Fusion Apps and whole lineup of Oracle software. Whether it’s going to have Exadata in its name — I don’t know. It’s going to be names Exalogic Elastic Cloud. It would make sense to support both Solaris and Linux virtualization technologies on that new platform.
   Oh, and I hope to see Oracle start offering vertical focused solutions based on Exadata. Like Retail Database Machine. Maybe it won’t come at the OpenWorld but I think it would be a good move by Oracle.
2. Solaris and Linux — I’ve been preaching for a while that having acquired Solaris engineering team, it would be insane not to take over Linux distribution from RedHat and start providing truly Oracle Linux. I was expecting Oracle to do that for a while. Either that or change Oracle’s commitment from Linux to Solaris on x86 platform. If Oracle is serious about Solaris now then the best indication of that would be Solaris x86 powered Exadata. In other words, the future of Linux and Solaris at Oracle should be made clear during this OpenWorld.
3. Fusion Apps — god, I really hope something will be out. After all those years talking about it, I can’t stand anymore hearing about the ghost product (or line of products). I think it’s also confirmed by Debra Lilley’s increased activity over the past year — she is buzzing unusually strong about it. ;-) Of course, Fusion Apps will be all about integration of zillion of Oracle products into one system (which is a very difficult task). Oh, and if Fusion Apps are announced then they will run best on Exadata, of course. Oracle Fusion Apps Machine?
4. Mark Hurd — finally, I’d be very keen to see the first serious public appearance of Mark Hurd as Oracle’s co-president. I think he will set the tone for the future of Oracle’s hardware business. So far it’s been all about profitability which is probably the best thing Oracle could do with otherwise dead Sun hardware business.

That’s all. I’m sure there will be more. I didn’t mention SPARC and that’s not because I forgot.

This OpenWorld promises to be very interesting!

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Now that Oracle OpenWorld 2010 is just under 70 days away I thought I would take a moment to mention that the Oracle Real-World Performance Group will again be hosting three sessions.   This year I think we have a very exciting and informative lineup of sessions that are a must-attend for those wanting to see and hear Oracle Database performance insight right from Oracle’s own performance engineers.  Hope to see you there! And for those who are interested, there will likely be many discussions about the Oracle Database Machine and Oracle Exadata.  Very hot stuff! Session ID: S317164 (Monday 2:00PM) Session Title: The Latest Real World Performance Challenges Session Abstract: Oracle’s Real-World Performance Group — the group that first presented at Oracle OpenWorld parallel query techniques with partitions, the index-less database, cardinality challenges with the optimizer, over-processed databases and connection storms — this year presents the performance issues before you experience them and how to plan for future projects with success. All topics discussed in this session come from the Real-World Performance Group’s observations and problem solving. Session ID: S317166 (Monday 5:00PM) Session Title: Real-World Performance Panel Session Session Abstract: This session is your chance, via written questions, to ask a [...]