The New Oracle X3-2: An Almost Exadata Server Appliance
In September 2011, Oracle had launched a server appliance for medium and small scale businesses. This was done in a bid to supply servers for businesses that did not require petabytes of database capacity, an Exadata level database cluster. The server was pre-tuned to operate Oracle 12c and 11g databases. But recently, the level of capacity required by small businesses also has increased significantly and there has been a demand for a server appliance that was more capable.
This prompted Oracle to come up with the X3-2, a scaled up version of the earlier server appliance for small businesses, introduced in 2011. These server appliances are covered throughout our Oracle DBA certification curriculum and courseware.
A Few Vital X3-2 Specifications
The X3-2 has been upgraded to perform at the level of Exadata servers without the actual Exadata specifications. The X3-2 database is a slightly toned down version of the previous database’s rack boxes which were known as Sun Fire X4170 M3. Every node of the X3-2 server appliance is made up of a couple of Xenon E5-2690 processors, the latest from the Intel stables. Each processor has eight cores working in parallel with each other at a rate of 2.9 GHz each. The main memory for each processor is 256 GB.
Each node of the X3-2 is provided with 4 10GBaseT ports. For systems software requirements, each node has a 600GB 10K RPM SAS drive with eight additional 2.5 inch drive bays. Out of the eight bays, two are used for a couple of 200 gigabytes SSDs for the DR logs or the database redo logs. Four additional bays are provided for expanding the storage of the X3-2 with the same 200GB SSDS, which is known as the storage expansion shelf.
The shelf in itself is constituted of 24 2.5 inch bays for SAS drives. If you outfit all these bays with 200GB SAS drives and add up the total capacity, you get an inspiring 900 GB SAS drives of 10KRPM only in the server and a staggering 18 TB of unused storage capacity in the storage expansion shelf.
On Demand Capacity Available
For users who do not require this amount of storage or processing power, Oracle is offering on-demand capacity. The pricing will also be tweaked according to the specifications that you choose. However, you can choose only in increments of 4 cores.
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