Oracle has introduced a high-end database plus storage system that it co-developed with Sun Microsystems, the companies' former combined creation as announcing their plans to unite approximately five months ago.

Called the Exadata Database Machine Version 2, it merge Intel-based servers as well as additional Sun hardware with Oracle's database plus storage management application in a rack-based system optimized for enterprise data warehousing plus prompt online transaction processing (OLTP).

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison revealed the creation on a webcast from Oracle's California headquarters, where he was united by John Fowler, and executive vice president in control of Sun's systems business. The system makes use of an extraordinarily large amount of flash memory -- up to 5TB in a completely overloaded rack -- to attain elevated levels of OLTP performance, Ellison alleged.

Neither of the executives made any situation to the companies' awaiting amalgamation, which Oracle had hoped to shut currently but which has been held up by opposition regulators in Europe. Nor did they reveal any further details about which Sun products Oracle will sustain or else cease if the merger goes during.

The system that promoted makes use of Linux, rather than Sun Solaris, along with Intel-type processors, rather than Sun's Ultrasparc T2 chips, as a few had estimated. But Oracle has pledged to sustain Sun's Sparc platform in the upcoming.

The Exadata system is follow-on to a related invention that Oracle built-up previous year with HP. Both systems merge database servers, storage servers as well as networking in a rack-based system preconfigured with Oracle's application.

The former Exadata system was for data warehousing only, Ellison alleged, while Exadata 2 is for mutually data warehousing as well as online deal processing. "Exadata Version 1 was the worlds best ever system for data warehousing programs," he alleged. "Exadata Version 2 is twice as quick as Exadata Version 1 for data warehousing, as well as it's the only database system that runs OLTP software."

The former adaptation was supported on HP's Intel-based ProLiant G5 servers, while the new-fangled machine make use of Sun Fire X4275 servers with Intel's quad-core Nehalem processors. It also make use of a quicker memory type, DDR3, with quicker disk as well as InfiniBand components, Ellison whispered, clearing up the performance advance over the former Exadata.

But the major progress is an innovative flash-based memory system from Sun that is used in the storage servers. Called FlashFire, it bundles four flash accelerator cards into every storage space server, all with a capability of 96GB. A completely overloaded rack with eight storage servers has 5TB of flash memory, in addition to 100TB of SAS disk capacity or else 336TB of SATA disk capacity.

"We have a massive, fast flash cache assembled into our storage servers.”These are not flash disks -- make no mistake, these are not flash disks. This is a smart memory chain of command made up of DRAM in our database servers along with flash in our storage servers, with extremely advanced algorithms. This is an extremely smart memory hierarchy where the Oracle software manages that memory very professionally, much quicker than flash disk."

The employ of flash memory along with InfiniBand enables the machine to execute 1 million I/O operations for each second, according to Ellison. "We can shift data much more quickly than any other PC in the globe," he claimed.

All that speed comes at a price. A full rack configuration, with eight database servers as well as 14 storage servers, starts at US$1.15 million for the database hardware only, according to a price list. The Oracle database software along with Exadata Storage Software is additional, as are the storage hardware as well as installation fees.

The system is also offered in half-rack, quarter-rack as well as single-server configurations, But. The entry produce starts at $115,000 for the database server hardware.

"I believe it's hard to believe the amount of flash they're using," alleged Dan Olds, principal analyst with Gabriel Consulting Group. "It's not reasonably an in-memory database, but it's not far-off it. Couple that with the Nehalem processors as well as the InfiniBand, and that's where the OLTP performance is approaching from."

Terms of utilize are "quite preventive, although," he noted, pointing to an Oracle FAQ. Exadata customers have to make use of the most recent Enterprise Edition of Oracle Database, version 11.2 or superior, as well as the system can't be customized in any way.

Consumers also can't run any additional application on the systems, he distinguished. "They didn't actually talk about whether you can perform OLTP with data warehousing at the similar time," Olds said. "As these machines acquire bigger and bigger, there are fewer and fewer clients that can make use of them for just one workload."

In various ways the occasion was notable for what Ellison did not say. With Sun consumers facing doubt about the upcoming of their platforms, rivals HP as well as IBM have been courting Sun customers away with violent immigration programs. Oracle has been demanding to enclose the damage with newspaper ads saying it will spend more in Sun's Sparc than Sun does.

But Ellison whispered not anything about his plans for Sun. He as well as Fowler both stressed that the Exadata 2 was built-up under the companies' very old partnership. The webcast ended suddenly with no time for query.

Oracle has won support for its Sun acquirement from U.S. regulators, but the European Commission has held up the agreement, probably until January. The charge says it's worried that Oracle's rights of Sun's MySQL database could damage opposition in the open-source software marketplace.

While the majority market analyst guesses the deal to go through, the doubt has been hitting Sun's server business. Its server income plunged 37 percent in the second quarter, a much better decline than for any of its major rivals, according to IDC.