2.1.2 Exadata Smart Flash Cache Optimizations

Oracle Exadata System Software release 26.1.0 optimizes Exadata Smart Flash Cache to further improve overall system performance and flash utilization. When flash capacity is available, these optimizations accelerate write-intensive workloads, data loads, and restore operations while preserving cache fairness and predictability for existing OLTP and analytical workloads.

Historically, Exadata Smart Flash Cache has focused on supporting online transaction processing (OLTP) and complex analytical workloads, with highly tuned policies designed to protect the performance of these workload types. In this context, large write operations were often not cached or quickly removed from the cache because they were deemed unlikely to benefit from long-term storage.

Starting with release 26.1.0, Exadata Smart Flash Cache is further optimized in two key ways:

1. Hot overwrite regions are actively cached, keeping the most frequently updated data in Exadata Smart Flash Cache. This optimizes write activity and prioritizes the most active data.

2. Cache usage can adjust dynamically, allowing the system to use available cache space for data that otherwise would not be cached. This allows all workloads to benefit from Exadata Smart Flash Cache, providing an all-flash user experience when the entire working data set fits in the cache.

These changes extend the versatility of Exadata Smart Flash Cache, while carefully preserving the fairness and predictability of existing caching policies.