Oracle and Intel team up to develop high-performance memory for next-generation Oracle Exadata

At Oracle OpenWorld, Intel and Oracle announced that Oracle will integrate the high-performance capabilities of Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory into its next-generation Exadata platform, the Oracle Exadata X8M. Exadata drives Oracle’s own databases, Oracle cloud applications, and the high-performance database infrastructure of most of the world’s largest banks, telecom operators, and retailers.

Oracle Exadata X8M runs a large number of mission-critical applications around the world. Exadata is the foundation of Oracle's self-developed database. (Image source: Oracle) 

Intel Optane DC persistent memory is designed for data center applications and represents the next generation of memory and storage technology. 

Oracle Exadata X8M is built on industry-standard 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, Intel Optane DC persistent memory, and 100 Gigabit RoCE networking to support today's demanding online transaction processing (OLTP), analytics, and mixed workload database requirements, as well as database consolidation and in-database machine learning. This first-of-its-kind integration is designed to deliver exceptional performance for latency-sensitive activities such as high-frequency stock trading, IoT data processing, real-time fraud and intrusion detection, financial trading, and applications that require real-time human-computer interaction.

“At Intel, we are committed to delivering the platform foundation that enables our customers to unlock the full value of their data,” said Navin Shenoy, executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s Data Center Group. “The integration of 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors and Intel Optane DC persistent memory in Oracle’s Exadata X8M represents the expansion of our long-standing collaboration to deliver breakthrough solutions for enterprises around the world. Our customers are experiencing the possibilities made possible by Intel Optane DC persistent memory through faster analytics and reduced response times.”

“Our collaboration with Intel sets a new industry benchmark in supporting databases with the highest performance and availability,” said Juan Loaiza, executive vice president of Mission Critical Database Technologies at Oracle. “Oracle and Intel have integrated advanced persistent memory technology into leading enterprise database machines to provide real-time access to the most mission-critical data. This overcomes the limitations of traditional shared storage systems and servers that have been unable to keep up with this level of innovation.”

Intel Optane DC persistent memory is a breakthrough innovation in the memory-storage hierarchy that combines DRAM-like performance with the persistence of data storage. Optane DC persistent memory, supported by 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, provides greater total memory capacity per platform at a faster rate and byte-addressable access to persistent data faster than the industry's best SSDs.

Exadata X8M uses Intel Optane DC persistent memory in a unique way in the industry, because Exadata uses sophisticated remote direct memory access (RDMA) technology to enable the database to directly access persistent memory deployed in intelligent shared storage servers, thereby bypassing the entire operating system, network and IO software stack. This can reduce IO latency in Exadata X8M by ten times compared to previous Exadata versions.