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Connor McDonald

Thanks for the question, John.

Asked: February 02, 2021 - 2:52 pm UTC

Last updated: February 16, 2021 - 3:43 am UTC

Version: 19c

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You Asked

GM,

We are considering moving to Exadata. I am both excited and nervous about having to support what seems like it would require a skillset beyond what most DBAs have.

How much more knowledge beyond being knowledgeable and experienced in RAC and having a good understanding of the Oracle engine is recommended when supporting Exadata?

If it is significant, is it recommended that the company should bring in a consultant say to set it up and then support it in production for a 3-6 months for fear that someone without experience will set it up incorrectly or cause outages while managing it?

Thanks,

John

and Connor said...

Knowing the additional bells and whistles in Exadata will enable you to best exploit all of its features. There's plenty of books and whitepapers out there on the topic.

It would definitely be advantageous to have an expert do some "pair programming" with you whilst they set it up and configure it for initial use - because thats a great way to lean.

But I don't think you'd need somewhere long term after its been commissioned.

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Comments

Exadata

A reader, February 10, 2021 - 9:04 am UTC 

Think of Exadata as being just another Oracle DB with bells and whistles (Oracle Engineered System).

Only Oracle will set it up and send it's personnel to help you and are provide prompt assistance in case of h/w failure.

Been working with Exadata for 10+ years now and the level of support provided by Oracle has been wonderful (because of the $$$ invested).

But other than that, read, read and read. Just be aware that you will need to learn new tricks (patching etc.) and also how it is set up (cell server, cache, DB server).

But once you start getting hands on it will be easier to handle.

FYI: the end users will be the hardest to please as they believe Exadata = "Fast" :D

Good luck with that ;o)

Cheers!

Connor McDonald
February 16, 2021 - 3:43 am UTC

Nice input.

Exadata book

Rajeshwaran, Jeyabal, February 10, 2021 - 2:32 pm UTC

If possible, read through this book ( https://www.apress.com/gp/book/9781430262411 ) it should help you. specifically focusing on Exadata features alone.

To John

J. Laurindo Chiappa, February 10, 2021 - 4:04 pm UTC

Hello, John : Exadata' foundations are built on top of some others technologies, namely ASM, special indexes (indexes where the 'device' containing the data is know, so only THIS device neeed to be read, avoiding A LOT OF I/Os), colunar compression (and some other compression techniques) and caching, among some others...
So, imho, first of all you NEED to understandand PROFOUNDLY this technoligies, together with RAC (RAC is Optinal but is very, very, very Common in EXADATA environments....
When you feel yourself confident with these RDBMS-related technologies, then you will be Ready to read the good books about EXADATA and learn about (the many) Exadata software specialties...

Success and Best Wishes,

Chiappa
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