Fully Exploiting Exadata
As a member of the Real-World Performance Group at Oracle I have participated in quite a number of Exadata POCs over the past two years. Often times those POCs are constrained in a number of ways: time, schema/app modifications, etc., because the objective is a proof, not a full blown migration. As a result there is often significant performance that is left on the table just waiting to be fully exploited – the kind of performance that really makes a database performance engineer excited – mind blowing performance. This includes, but is not limited to, data model changes, SQL query modifications and re-engineering batch processes. The reason these types of modifications get me so excited is that design decisions are often influenced by the then current deployment platform and with the Exadata powered Oracle Database Machine those restrictions are frequently lifted. You see, with Exadata the rules change, and so should your design decisions. Sure, you could just pluck-and-plop an existing Oracle data warehouse database onto an Oracle Database Machine and it would likely run much faster than it does on your current system, and you will be wowed, but you very well may shouting four letter expletives describing how fast it is if you do some re-engineering. This is why I’d like to highlight (my emphasis) this quote from a recent Pythian news update:
Pythian provides LinkShare with consulting and technical expertise for the planning, configuration, deployment, management, administration and ongoing operational support of their migration project. This includes re-engineering the database, adjusting the data model, redefining table structures, creating new indexing schemes and re-writing and tuning SQL queries, among other tasks. The project is scheduled for completion later this year and the results will be unveiled at Oracle OpenWorld in September 2010.
Hats off to both Pythian and LinkShare for realizing that they can capitalize on the opportunity to re-engineer with Exadata and fully exploit the power of the Oracle Database Machine platform. I can’t wait until Oracle OpenWorld to hear just how awesome their performance deltas are. Don’t just shoot for a level 5 performance (porting only) increase with Exadata, do a little re-engineering and turn it all the way up to 11 for that extra push over the cliff, Spinal Tap style!