Oracle’s Engineered Systems - Features (Part 2)

In the earlier post, we looked at two of the most important features or motivation to move to Oracle's Engineered Systems and the value proposition offered. We saw how Lowered TCO and Manageability actually enhance the product offering and also help our customers in lowering their costs and reduce the overall administrative pain.

Oracle Engineered Systems, as we will see is not only about Extreme Performance. Though the pitch is "Extreme Performance at Best Cost", there are numerous other features which make it a compelling business solution.

Simplifying IT
By offering the Software in tune with the Hardware, and making it all manageable with an integrated Enterprise Management software, things become substantially easier for the IT teams. Installation, upgrades , patching and maintenance become extremely easily. A side effect of this simplification is also the fact that there is no new skill to be acquired and hence no training costs are involved in moving onto the Exa series. The existing solutions work as-is without any changes to the code, as we saw earlier - the only difference being the blazing fast performance. This is significantly better when compared to some other products which require you to learn a complete new framework and develop solutions for that range of products *alone*.

 

Easier Patching, Support and Maintenance

Exalogic supports Single File patches -  i.e, a single file which will take care of patching right from firmware to the operating system. The philosophy of 'Apply-and-Go' suits perfectly and reduces the downtime and the risks involved. Patching becomes extremely simplified and can be done during critical times of the year - i.e, MEC / QEC / YEC (month / quarter / year end closure) refresh schedules. Also, Platinum Support is offered to Engineered Systems which makes it even easier to work with Oracle and get the problem rectified.

Open Standards and Interfaces 

Oracle's Applications, Middleware, Operating System are all based on established Open Standards and Interfaces. Why is this important? Well, this is what Don Deutsch, Vice President for Standards, Strategy, and Architecture at Oracle had to say on this topic:  

“Open standards protect customer investments by reducing vendor lock-in. Building enterprise software around standard interfaces enables customers to easily extend those systems as their businesses evolve—without major retooling.”

For example, consider Fusion Applications : Using the latest technology and incorporating the best practices gathered from Oracle's customers, Oracle Fusion Applications is a suite of 100% open standards-based business applications that provide a new standard for the way businesses innovate, work and adopt technology. Delivered as a complete suite of modular, service-enabled enterprise applications, Oracle Fusion Applications works with Oracle's Applications Unlimited portfolio to evolve business to a new level of performance. Whether it is one module, a product family, or the entire suite, Oracle provides businesses with their choice of all advancements pioneered by Oracle Fusion Applications, at a pace that matches individual business demands. 

  

Private Clouds:

For customers who want to start off the cloud initiative by starting with in-premise clouds, the Exa series offers the perfect starting point. The best of the breed software coupled with hardware offers the resilence that cloud systems need. Also, it becomes extremely easy to setup in-premise private clouds by chaining a few of the Exalogic boxes, and if database is needed, Exadata machines can be connected via the high speed Infiniband technology which is certified.

Consolidation
The Exa series allows customers to consolidate their disparate systems onto one(or few) machines. Development, Testing, Stage, UAT, and Production systems no longer need to run on different set of hardware; all can benefit the extreme performance of the engineered systems. Also, since the systems would be identical, there will be no significant change between the different environments (would be almost nil infact).

Capacity Planning 

For customers who want to start off with a minimal configuration(i.e, not all the cores) and want to pay-as-they-grow, Trusted Partitions/Sub-Processor Licensing offers the flexibility in licensing the cores.  Though for products like Exalytics, wherein it makes more sense to use entire hardware for making the maximum out of the hardware, Oracle still presents this is an option.

Fast Balanced Hardware Configuration

The Exa line of products has been extensively tested and includes the state of the art hardware. Infiniband technology offers blazing fast data transfer rates that are extremely crucial for enterprise applications that often require minimum latency.  The components are chosen specifically for every business challenge and hence the different products in the Exa series. This shows Oracle's commitment in offering extremely specific solutions and not a generic pill which would solve 'all-ailments'.

Complete Stack
Oracle's Engineered Systems are a complete package, which means that the customers do not have to depend on multiple vendors for getting system up and running. Minimal Zero Configuration or Tweaking is needed as Oracle certifies the entire stack - from hardware, firmware to the applications on it.

Value Proposition

Having expatiated on numerous(but not limited to these alone) factors, i think the 'package' is one of the best, offering the customer the full freedom to choose from the different solutions in the Exa line which would help the customer fit his business needs and concentrate more on expanding his business.

If you have read through this post and Part-1 of this 2-part series, then the following video is a quick summary of  what Oracle's Engineered Systems truly are. It explains the value proposition of Oracle's Engineered Systems with a nice analogy which is quite easy to comprehend and appreciate; and underscores the importance of how Software Engineered for Hardware is beneficial to customers helping them get-on-board quickly and also maintain them easily during the usage of the product.

As we have seen, Engineered Systems are something more than the sum of the parts, or as the Exalogic PM Michael Palmeter states in this post, it is the

result of the productization of the integration and development work that our customers have been forced to do for years. Customers shouldn't ideally be developing the infrastructure or the platform from Disk to Applications, rather they should be concentrating on their core business.