1.2 Oracle Exadata Configurations
Oracle Exadata can come in a specific configuration, for example the half rack, or use an elastic configuration with a custom number of database servers and storage servers.
Oracle Exadata uses a scale-out architecture for both database servers and storage servers. As Oracle Exadata grows, more database CPUs, storage and networking are added in a balanced fashion, ensuring scalability without bottlenecks.
Early Oracle Exadata models had fixed configurations, such as quarter-rack or half-rack.
Contemporary Oracle Exadata systems use custom configurations called elastic configurations. Elastic configurations enable you to build an Oracle Exadata Rack containing a custom number of database servers and storage servers that meet your needs. See Elastic Configuration for details.
In addition to upgrading within a rack, multiple racks can be connected using the integrated RDMA Network Fabric to form larger configurations. For example, a system composed of four full Exadata racks is essentially four times more powerful than a single rack system. The four racks provide quadruple the I/O throughput, storage capacity and processors. The multi-rack system can be configured as a single large system or logically partitioned for consolidation of multiple databases.
When larger storage capacity is required, Oracle Exadata Storage Expansion Rack is available. Oracle Exadata Storage Expansion Rack enables growth of storage capacity and bandwidth for any Oracle Exadata. It is designed for database deployments that require very large amounts of data including historical or archival data, backups, documents, images, XML, large objects (LOBs), and so on. Oracle Exadata Storage Expansion Rack starts with a base configuration that includes four storage servers, and you can add as many additional storage servers as you need, up to the physical capacity of the rack. The servers in the Oracle Exadata Storage Expansion Rack connect to Oracle Exadata using the integrated RDMA Network Fabric.
All Oracle Exadata implementations use time-tested configuration standards, so customers benefit from the experience of other users who have deployed Oracle Exadata for their mission-critical applications.
Oracle Exadata runs standard Oracle Database software. Any applications that run with Oracle Database can be seamlessly migrated to Oracle Exadata with no changes to the application.