Oracle launches Sparc-based Exalogic cloud option
Oracle has launched a Sparc-based Solaris server option for its Exalogic cloud-in-a-box product suite.
The Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud T3-1B can now run on Sparc servers running Solaris 11 Express, and can be combined with Oracle's WebLogic Server and other enterprise middleware products, the company said in a statement on Thursday.
Oracle finalised its Sun acquisition in January, and said at the time that it wanted to use the Sun portfolio to recreate the "reliable environment" of IBM in the 1960s — with software, hardware and services packages — as open platforms. Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud T3-1B works with any middleware that is optimised for Oracle Solaris 11 Express, an Oracle spokeswoman told ZDNet UK.
"[Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud T3-1B] is designed as an open system," said the spokeswoman.
The Exalogic Elastic Cloud System is designed for a range of cloud uses, from small-scale to enterprise level applications. Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud T3-1B is aimed at the higher-end buyer who is looking for large-scale deployments, said the Oracle statement.
"Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud can support thousands of Java and non-Java applications with differing security, reliability and performance requirements — making it an ideal platform for enterprise-wide data center consolidation," said the statement.
Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud T3-1B uses Oracle Solaris 11 Express with an InfiniBand-based I/O fabric. InfiniBand is commonly used in high-performance computing as a switched fabric communications link. The product is tuned for multithreaded applications: that is, applications with threads that exist within the same process, and share resources such as memory.
Exalogic was launched in September with the option of using Linux and Solaris variants.
Also on Friday, Oracle announced a Sparc product suite called Sparc Supercluster, for running Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC). Oracle RAC is a cluster database with a shared cache architecture.
Sparc Supercluster is based on Sparc T2, T3, T4 or M5000 servers running the FlashFire SSD accelerator, InfiniBand QDR (quad data rate, or 10Gbit/s), Oracle Solaris, and the ZFS Storage Appliance.