Expert Oracle Exadata - Parent Directory

CHAPTER 1 WHAT IS EXADATA?the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK). This optimized version has several enhancements that arespecifically applicable to Exadata. Among these are network-related improvements to InfiniBand usingthe RDS protocol. One of the reasons for releasing the UEK may be to speed up Oracle’s ability to roll outchanges to Linux by avoiding the lengthy process necessary to get changes into the standard OpenSource releases. Oracle has been a strong partner in the development of Linux and has made severalmajor contributions to the code base. The stated direction is to submit all the enhancements included inthe EUK version for inclusion in the standard release.Oracle has also announced that the X2 database servers will have the option of running Solaris 11Express. And speaking of Solaris, we are frequently asked about whether Oracle has plans to release aversion of Exadata that uses SPARC CPUs. At the time of this writing, there has been no indication thatthis will be a future direction. It seems more likely that Oracle will continue to pursue the X86-basedsolution.Storage servers for both the X2-2 and X2-8 models will continue to run exclusively on Oracle Linux.Oracle views these servers as a closed system and does not support installing any additional software onthem.Database ServersThe current generation X2-2 database servers are based on the Sun Fire X4170 M2 servers. Each serverhas two × 6 Core Intel Xeon X5670 processors (2.93 GHz) and 96GB of memory. They also have fourinternal 300GB 10K RPM SAS drives. They have several network connections including two 10Gb andfour 1Gb Ethernet ports in addition to the two QDR InfiniBand (40Gb/s) ports. Note that the 10Gb portsare open and that you’ll need to provide the correct connectors to attach them to your existing copper orfiber network. The servers also have a dedicated ILOM port and dual hot-swappable power supplies.The X2-8 database servers are based on the Sun Fire X4800 servers. They are designed to handlesystems that require a large amount of memory. The servers are equipped with eight x 8 Core Intel XeonX7560 processors (2.26 GHz) and 1 TB of memory. This gives the full rack system a total of 128 cores and2 terabytes of memory.Storage ServersThe current generation of storage servers are the same for both the X2-2 and the X2-8 models. Eachstorage server consists of a Sun Fire X4270 M2 and contains 12 disks. Depending on whether you havethe high-capacity version or the high-performance version, the disks will either be 2TB or 600GB SASdrives. Each storage server comes with 24GB of memory and two x 6 Core Intel Xeon X5670 processorsrunning at 2.93 GHz. These are the same CPUs as on the X2-2 database servers. Because these CPUs arein the Westmere family, they have built in AES encryption support, which essentially provides ahardware assist to encryption and decryption. Each storage server also contains four 96GB Sun FlashAccelerator F20 PCIe cards. This provides a total of 384GB of flash based storage on each storage cell.The storage servers come pre-installed with Oracle Linux 5.InfiniBandOne of the more important hardware components of Exadata is the InfiniBand network. It is used fortransferring data between the database tier and the storage tier. It is also used for interconnect trafficbetween the database servers, if they are configured in a RAC cluster. In addition, the InfiniBandnetwork may be used to connect to external systems for such uses as backups. Exadata providesredundant 36-port QDR InfiniBand switches for these purposes. The switches provide 40 Gb/Sec ofthroughput. You will occasionally see these switches referred to as “leaf” switches. In addition, eachdatabase server and each storage server are equipped with Dual-Port QDR InfiniBand Host Channel11