Oracle taps into Sun tech for faster Exadata

Database giant Oracle has drawn on Sun hardware technology in a new version of its Exadata data-warehousing appliance, which it describes as significantly faster than the previous model.

In an announcement on Tuesday, Oracle said the Exadata Database Machine Version 2 uses Sun FlashFire technology to increase performance and the scalability of online transaction processing (OLTP).

In a statement, Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison said Exadata Version 2 is twice as fast as Exadata V1 for data warehousing. "It's the only database machine that runs OLTP applications," he added.

The appliance combines Intel Nehalem processors with up to 5TB of flash memory, fast DDR3 memory and SAS disks running at 6Gbps with a 40Gbps InifinBand network. Raw storage capacity is 100TB of SAS disks or 336TB or Sata disks per rack.

In April, Oracle announced plans to buy Sun for $7.4bn (£4.5bn). The proposed acquisition was approved by US authorities in August, but is being examined by the European Commission for potential antitrust issues.

The first version of the Exadata appliance, launched in September 2008, was produced in conjunction with HP, with which Oracle has had a partnership agreement.

The status of that agreement has yet to be clarified in light of Oracle's planned takeover of Sun. However, according to an Oracle spokeswoman quoted by Reuters on Tuesday, Oracle has now ended the HP partnership. Oracle declined to comment on the report.