IBM Techline CompeteCenter

Michael Weis, micweis@dk.ibm.com, Competitive Specialist Henrik Wilken, wilken@dk.ibm.com, Competitive Specialist

Six Talking points against Oracle Exadata V2

IBM internal use only. Do not distribute to IBM Business Partners or customers.

2010 IBM Corporation

About Exadata and this presentation

Oracle is very aggressively talking to customers about Oracle Exadata making customers believe Exadata is something special and outstanding in the industry It is not It is a one size fits all appliance-like system based on yesterdays business model Exadata is a very easy to understand marketing bundle with NO value to most customers at a very high price tag This presentation contains six talking points against Oracle Exadata that can be used with customers. Use these talking points to show customers:
IBM is the IT vendor setting the scene worldwide Which CEO is talking to world leaders? There is nothing in Exadata IBM cant do much better using our own technology One size doesn't fit all and customers dont accept cost without value Exadata is built on non-Sun technology A virtualized and cloud-based environment is much more flexible and offers better TCO compared to Oracles appliance approach 6. IBMs DB2 pureScale technology has more performance and offers lower TCO compared to Oracle RAC 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

IBM internal use only. Do not distribute to IBM Business Partners or customers.

2010 IBM Corporation

What is Oracle Exadata

Exadata has two server modules Database Server
Up to 8 Sun Fire X4170 servers Intel Xeon 5540 Nehalem processor @ 2.53GHz

Storage Server
Up to 14 Sun Fire X4275 Servers Intel Xeon 5540 Nehalem processor @ 2.53GHz Max. 100 TB raw SAS disk storage Max. 336 TB raw SATA disk storage Max. 5TB flash storage

InfiniBand Network
36 x 40 Gb/sec ports

Exadata Software
Oracle Exadata Storage Server Software Oracle Enterprise Linux Oracle Database 11.2 Drivers, Utilities

Sold as , or full rack configurations Scales to a 8 rack database machine

It is just hardware and software NO magic here!

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1. Which CEO is talking to world leaders?

IBM is setting the IT scene globally with initiatives like Smarter Planet
World leaders are talking and listening to the CEO of IBM, Sam Palmisano. Not Larry Ellison of Oracle or any Sun executives

The reason? IBM is years ahead in creating the IT infrastructure of the future an infrastructure based on creating value for the customer and taking care of the planet Oracle Exadata is a sad example of yesterdays way of doing business in the IT industry squeezing the customers for license and support $

IBM internal use only. Do not distribute to IBM Business Partners or customers.

2010 IBM Corporation

2. There is nothing in Exadata IBM cant do much better using our own technology
It is a matter of design. Exadata from Oracle is based on a large number of components last year it was based on x86 servers from HP, this year it is Sun x86 server what about next year? Oracle/Sun needs to align own middleware stack as part of integrating Sun into Oracle. Will current Exadata components survive the internal struggle?
Cloud Smart Business Services and Systems

IBM can build systems similar to Oracle Exadata based on integrated technology and services from bottom to top but build to support the customers business needs Why should the customer buy a solution just because Oracle thinks it is a good idea?
System z

FLEXIBLE DELIVERY CHOICES

Integrated Service Management

INTEGRATED SERVICE MANAGEMENT

Infrastructure-wide Virtualization Workload Optimized Systems

System Software Power Systems System x Storage Data Center Networking

Technology Leadership

A WORKLOAD OPTIMIZED APPROACH

2010 IBM Corporation

IBM internal use only. Do not distribute to IBM Business Partners or customers.

3. One size doesn't fit all - and customers dont accept cost without value
Oracle has built a huge database machine that is overkill to support either OLTP or Data Warehousing (BI) Exadata is a one-size fits all machine whose target market is unclear OLTP customers end up over-paying for excessive storage they will probably never use BI customers pay for expensive SSD Flash drives used only for flash memory that are not effective for data warehouse workloads

IBM can build systems similar to the Oracle Exadata using leading-edge technology like the DB2 pureScale database and Power7 based servers with better performance, lower TOC and based on the needs of the customer.
Exadata is a return to the good old days of IT where the vendors were controlling what the customers should buy that business model stopped working 20 years ago ask former employees of WANG, Data General and other ancient IT vendors. The IBM business model of today is totally different and helping customers shift their focus from productivity to innovation by integrating advanced technology far deeper into their business operations in order to unlock innovation and drive growth
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4. Why dont they use Sun technology?

Exadata is built using standard components like Intel processors and Linux NOT Sun processors and operating system WHY is that? The processors used in Exadata are standard Intel Xeon 5540 Nehalem processors Why doesnt Oracle use the Sun UltraSPARC-T2 Plus processor? According to Suns marketing the UltraSPARC-T2 Plus is ahead of all competition We (Sun) introduced Sun's second and third generation CMT processor while the rest of the industry is straining to catch up with our first generation.

The operating system is Oracle Enterprise Linux, an operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Even more strange Why dont they use Solaris? - Solaris was one of the main reasons Oracle spend $7 billion buying Sun! There can be several explanations to this: Linux is a better platform for Oracle RAC than Solaris There was not enough time to migrate the drivers and utilities from Linux to Solaris Oracle needed to get Exadata fast to market in order to have something new to present to customers
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5. Appliance vs. Virtualization

Datacenter trend is towards Virtualization and Cloud Computing

Exadata concept is driving in opposite direction introducing a separate compute island Risk of over provisioning: Fixed configurations only Dedicated dB platform, no utilization of unused resources by other applications No integration to existing storage and compute resources Suggest rip and replace approach for existing installations IBM offers holistic approach to datacenter solutions End-to-end integrated solutions, integrating to existing infrastructure if feasible (i.e. SAN) Power Systems and PowerVM designed to drive utilization beyond 90% Dynamic resource allocation based on application demand, no over provisioning Integrated Systems Management at Datacenter level

IBM internal use only. Do not distribute to IBM Business Partners or customers.

2010 IBM Corporation

6. Oracle RAC vs. IBM DB2 pureScale

Exadata is built on Oracle RAC A solution running on low cost HW at high license cost Oracle RAC does not scale well
IBM DB2 pureScale on Power7 based systems delivers superior value DB2 pureScale makes more effective use of massive Power7 execution threads DB2 pureScale has far better scalability and availability than Oracle RAC Study shows IBM pureScale scales 94% vs. RAC at 44% @ 8 nodes (details on next page) Redistribute workload to surviving nodes immediately Recover in-flight transactions on failing node in as little as 15 seconds Keep the cluster running during rolling software maintenance and updates DB2 pure Scale delivers better overall TCO than Oracle RAC Power7 cluster-in-a-box vs. 8 Sun Nehalem-based servers Sun requires 2x number of cores and 48% more cost for comparable performance ! (details on p.9)

IBM internal use only. Do not distribute to IBM Business Partners or customers.

2010 IBM Corporation

6. Oracle RAC Scaling Compared To IBM DB2 pureScale

DB2 pureScale vs. Oracle RAC Scalability 12

Effective Nodes (Scaling)

10 8
7,54

10,33

IBM DB2 pureScale 80% read 20% write Transaction workload Oracle RAC transactions study with InfiniBand (2007)

6 4 2 0
2 4 6 8 Database Nodes In Cluster 10
1,98
1,00 3,51

3,90
2,32

12

Linear Scaling

DB2 pureScale 80:20 OLTP

Dell RAC Study with InfiniBand

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Dell RAC Study http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/power/ps2q07-20070279-Mahmood.pdf IBM internal use only. Do not distribute to IBM Business Partners or customers.

2010 IBM Corporation

6. DB2 pureScale on Power7 costs less than Oracle RAC on Sun Nehalem
DB2 pureScale on Power 750
1 server - 32 cores total 4 nodes, each in LPAR with 7 cores 1 Coupling Facility in LPAR with 4 cores
Coupling DB2 Facility Node 1 LPAR LPAR

Oracle RAC on Sun X4170 (Nehalem)

8 servers 64 cores total 8-cores per node

DB2
Node 2 LPAR

DB2
Node 3 LPAR

DB2
Node 4 LPAR

POWER Hypervisor TM

Performance: 3.2M tpm 3 Year TCA:$2.62M

Performance: 3.0M tpm 3 Year TCA:$3.89M

Oracle on Nehalem costs 48% more
2010 IBM Corporation

DB2 pureScale performance projected from IBM internal Studies Oracle RAC performance projected from Dell Study of Oracle RAC with Infiniband TCA costs include hardware, software, hardware maintenance, software maintenance Solution Price discounted 50% for IBM, 50% for Oracle
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Call to action
Dont let Oracle control the customers IT agenda Exadata is clever marketing from Oracle It is NOT a unique piece of technology Be offensive Oracle is. Oracle is pitching Exadata at your accounts (especially our System x and Power Systems customers running Oracle databases or Apps) Using it as a foot in the door to get a larger piece of the customers IT budget Elevate the discussion beyond the product level - Leverage topics like Smart Analytics, Virtualization and Cloud computing in order to show IBM leadership Use the momentum behind Smarter Planet Oracle has NOTHING to to talk to customers about beyond products. There will be no more development resources given to Sun's Java-based Project Wonderland Sun has always had a lot of talking time in front of customers - It doesn't look like Oracle will use any of Suns pervasive technologies. Oracle doesnt use UltraSPARC-T2 and Solaris in Exadata. Oracle will cut half of Sun workers, analyst predicts IBMs continued R&D investment and innovation leadership overwhelms Oracles and Suns R&D investment combined. Remember to tell customers how IBMs technology can address todays workloads while establishing the foundation for the emerging workloads of tomorrow

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IBM internal use only. Do not distribute to IBM Business Partners or customers.

2010 IBM Corporation

Where to get more help

For more high-level talking points or background information please contact the IBM Techline CompeteCenter Intranet: compete.dk.ibm.com PartnerWorld: partners.boulder.ibm.com..... Mail: compete@dk.ibm.com IBM Techline CompeteCenter provides Hotline support on IBM's main competitors Competitive information On-site call support Education Sales and marketing support

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IBM internal use only. Do not distribute to IBM Business Partners or customers.

2010 IBM Corporation

Disclaimer
This document has been prepared by the IBM Techline CompeteCenter. The document represents our best view at the time of writing. The assumptions and IBM internal assessments in this document are based on information from press reports, industry consultants and public statements. They represent the opinion of the authors, not the opinion of the IBM Corporation.

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IBM internal use only. Do not distribute to IBM Business Partners or customers.

2010 IBM Corporation