Exadata Software - Oracle Exadata Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach - page 32

Chapter 2
Exadata Software
Exadata's fast, balanced hardware configuration provides an Oracle infrastructure capable of delivering high
performance for Oracle databases, but the hardware is only part of the equation. To truly deliver extreme performance,
Oracle has designed and deployed several key software solutions inside Exadata, each of whose primary goal is to
either reduce the demand for I/O resources or boost the speed of I/O operations. Oracle's performance goal with
Exadata was to eliminate I/O as the bottleneck for database operations. Oracle has been successful in meeting this goal
by not only leveraging performance capabilities with Oracle 11gR2 database, grid infrastructure, and Oracle ASM, but
also by developing InfiniBand-aware I/O communication protocols into the Oracle software stack that fundamentally
changes how Oracle performs physical I/O. Each of these Exadata software features works without application code
modification and, under the right conditions, each of these can be used to deliver extreme performance.
This chapter will be centered on how Oracle 11gR2 software, database, and Automatic Storage Management
(ASM) operates on an Oracle Exadata Database Machine, specifically focused on providing the reader with a technical
understanding of Oracle on Exadata. In addition, we will include an introductory recipe that provides a description
of some of Exadata's unique software features. Since Oracle's unique storage server software features are the keys to
delivering extreme performance on Exadata, they will be covered in greater detail in Chapters 15 through 19.
2-1. Understanding the Role of Exadata Storage Server Software
Problem
As an Exadata owner or administrator, you've been sold on the extreme performance features that Exadata offers and
wish to understand a brief summary of how these features will impact your workload.
Solution
In this recipe, we will provide a brief summary of what each of the unique Exadata Storage Server software features
is designed to accomplish and point out any administrator or workload characteristic impact. Table 2-1 summarizes
these additional Exadata software features.