Oracle Database Appliance
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Oracle Database Appliance was introduced by Oracle President Mark Hurd in September 2011. It is a member of Oracle's family of engineered systems, which refers to combined hardware and software designed to provide a specific function. Like it's larger sibling, Oracle Exadata, Oracle Database Appliance is an engineered system that functions as a database server. It is smaller than Oracle Exadata, containing less storage, memory and CPUs, at a lower price.[1] It's differentiation over other solutions is it's ease of deployment, patching, and support. It is a single-box solution that contains all the hardware and software needed to build a highly available database server, automatically configured with minimal end-user involvement during deployment. Oracle provides software fixes (patches) for the entire system in a single bundle, streamlining the patching process.[2] [3]
The Oracle Database Appliance is a two-node cluster in a box. Inside the box are two servers, configured in a cluster, with shared storage. Each server contains two six-core processors, for a total of 12 cores per server. Each server also contains 96GB memory, six 1Gbit NICs, and two 10Gbit NICs. NICs are configured by default in an active/passive HA (bonding) configuration. Inside the appliance is 4 x 73GB of shared SSD storage, and 20 x 600GB of shared hard disk storage. As would be expected in this class of server, the appliance contains redundant power and cooling.[4]
The Oracle Database Appliance runs Oracle Linux, Oracle Grid Infrastructure for cluster and storage management, and a choice of Oracle Enterprise Edition, Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node, or Oracle RAC. These latter two database products leverage the clustered nature of the hardware to provide highly available database services in the event of a failure.[5]
A unique feature of the Oracle Database Appliance is the ability to license only a subset of the processor cores in the server. This is done by disabling unnecessary processor cores in the BIOS, using a special interface. This is unique as Oracle does not usually recognize disabling cores as a way to reduce the licensing requirements in a server. The special interface used provides an auditing mechanism that enables Oracle to track the number of enabled cores, and thus they allow core disablement on the Oracle Database Appliance to reduce the license requirements. Since cores can be enabled at a later time, this allows customers who purchase the Oracle Database Appliance to reconfigure their box at a later time to enable additional cores, deferring license costs until they are truly needed.[6]
References
- ^ Fielding, Marc. "Comparing Oracle Database Appliance and Oracle Exadata". Retrieved 27 December 2012.
- ^ Moltzen, Edward. "Oracle Database Appliance: Perfect Time for Sun/Oracle Offspring". CRN.com. Retrieved 27 December 2012.
- ^ "Oracle Database Appliance White Paper" (PDF). Oracle. Retrieved 27 December 2012.
- ^ "Oracle Database Appliance Data Sheet" (PDF). Oracle. Retrieved 27 December 2012.
- ^ Baird, Cathy. "Oracle High Availability and Best Practices". Oracle. Retrieved 27 December 2012.
- ^ Walsh, Larry. "Oracle Goes Small with Database Appliance". Retrieved 27 December 2012.