Oracle Database Cloud Services now run in all the major hyperscaler clouds – AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud as well as Oracle Cloud. Here’s a simple analogy that highlights what sets these services apart from traditional architectures based on compute instances and simple block storage.
Imagine the database server as the dealer in a game of cards. Your storage volumes or servers are the players. When your database server distributes data across the storage, it’s like dealing hands of cards.
Simple block storage, used in other cloud services that aren’t built on Exadata Cloud Infrastructure, can’t interpret the data it holds – like a player holding cards but unable to interpret them. To answer a simple query like “How many 7’s are in play?” each player passes all their cards back to the dealer, who must then search through every card to answer the query.
With intelligent database-aware storage – where a portion of the Oracle Database software runs on the storage server – each player (storage server) checks their own cards (data) and sends only the answer to the dealer (DB server). Much less data needs to move across the network, eliminating a potential bottleneck. Now, the dealer just aggregates results – no need to check every card. This reduces I/O operations and decreases the DB server’s processing needs, which may also lower your software license requirements. That’s the advantage of Exadata Smart Scan.
Let’s take the analogy one step further. Imagine each player checks their cards when they’re dealt and notes the highest and lowest. If a player sees their lowest card is an 8, when someone asks, “How many 7’s are in play?” they already know the answer is zero – no need to even look at the cards. This eliminates even more I/O. That’s how Storage Indexes work in Exadata.
The main idea: use intelligence in the storage tier to do the processing where your data already resides, instead of moving all the data to a central processor.
This makes your database faster and more efficient. Even better, since many database services from other clouds charge extra for Provisioned IOPS capacity with their fastest block storage, Exadata’s efficiency helps you save real money. You’ll use fewer IOPS, but if you ever need more, they’re available at no extra cost.
Running Oracle Database Cloud Services powered by Exadata unlocks many unique benefits. Smart Scan and Storage Indexes are just two – but this simple analogy shows how transformative they can be.