Pradip
03 May, 2025
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5 Mins Read

Exploring Oracle Exadata on OCI: The Ultimate Database Experience

Before I get into the technicalities, let me share something personal. While I have hands-on experience with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), I’ll admit that Exadata is a massive subject much deeper than one person can fully master alone. To write this article with as much depth and clarity as possible, I took a lot of help from our OCI trainers at Learnomate Technologies Pvt Ltd, who deal with this tech every day. I’m especially thankful to one of my dearest friends, Prashant (affectionately known as Pashhya), who is currently working as an OCI specialist. His input on real-time usage, deployment pitfalls, and automation best practices was invaluable.

If you work with large-scale databases, especially Oracle Databases, I don’t need to tell you how demanding performance, reliability, and scalability can be. You and I both know that traditional on-prem setups have their limits. That’s where Oracle Exadata on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) comes into play — offering you a hybrid, scalable, and performance-optimized environment purpose-built for enterprise-grade databases.

Let me walk you through why Exadata on OCI is considered one of the best infrastructures for running Oracle Databases, and why you should consider it seriously, whether you’re a DBA, cloud architect, or cloud engineer.

What is Oracle Exadata on OCI?

Oracle Exadata is a high-performance, integrated system optimized specifically for running Oracle Databases. On OCI, it comes as Exadata Cloud@Customer and Exadata Cloud Service, giving you the power of Exadata hardware with the flexibility and agility of the cloud.

You don’t just get a VM or a container — you get an entire engineered system optimized for I/O-intensive workloads, smart scans, in-memory processing, and hybrid columnar compression.

Key Technical Features You Should Know

Exadata Smart Scan
Hybrid Columnar Compression (HCC)
RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet)
Smart Flash Cache
Auto Indexing (in Autonomous)
Exadata Cloud Automation
Real Application Clusters (RAC) & MAA

Exadata on OCI: Deployment Options

1. Exadata Cloud Service (ECS)

Managed by Oracle, you manage the DB layer.

2. Exadata Cloud@Customer (ExaC@C)

Runs on-prem but managed by Oracle. Great for regulatory or low-latency requirements.

Provisioning Exadata Using Terraform (Sample Code)

Here’s a basic snippet using Terraform to create an Exadata Infrastructure on OCI:

provider "oci" {
  tenancy_ocid     = var.tenancy_ocid
  user_ocid        = var.user_ocid
  fingerprint      = var.fingerprint
  private_key_path = var.private_key_path
  region           = var.region
}

resource "oci_database_exadata_infrastructure" "example" {
  compartment_id       = var.compartment_ocid
  display_name         = "exadata-infra-demo"
  shape                = "Exadata.Quarter1.84"
  maintenance_window {
    preference = "CUSTOM_PREFERENCE"
    days_of_week = [
      { name = "SUNDAY" }
    ]
    hours_of_day = [2]
  }
}

After provisioning the infrastructure, you can create the DbSystem on top of it.

resource "oci_database_db_system" "exadata_db_system" {
  availability_domain = var.ad
  compartment_id      = var.compartment_ocid
  database_edition    = "ENTERPRISE_EDITION_EXTREME_PERFORMANCE"
  db_home {
    db_version = "19.0.0.0"
    database {
      db_name = "EXADBDemo"
    }
  }
  shape = "Exadata.Quarter1.84"
  subnet_id = var.subnet_id
  hostname  = "exadbhost"
}

OCI CLI Example to List Exadata Infrastructure

You can use OCI CLI to check your provisioned Exadata systems:

oci db exadata-infrastructure list --compartment-id ocid1.compartment.oc1..xxxxxx

Or to check DB nodes:

oci db node list --compartment-id <compartment-ocid> --db-system-id <db-system-ocid>

Real-World Use Case: Telecom

One of my clients, a large telecom provider, moved its billing and CRM systems to Exadata Cloud Service.

Query performance improved by 70% for CDR analysis.
Zero downtime upgrades through RAC + Data Guard.
Terraform used to manage provisioning of entire environment across dev, test, and prod.

This allowed them to reduce operational costs by 40% while speeding up their time-to-market for customer plans.

Performance Metrics

OLTP throughput: Up to 12M IOPS
SQL Scan rate: Over 560 GB/s
Smart Flash Cache latency: Sub-millisecond
Data compression: Up to 10x using HCC

These aren’t theoretical — they’re real-world numbers backed by Oracle benchmarks.

Security & Compliance

Built-in features include:

Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)
Data masking and redaction
OCI Vault for customer-managed keys
Private subnets, NSGs, and compartment-based access control

You can integrate Exadata systems with SIEM tools via OCI Logging and Monitoring APIs.

DevOps & Automation

Exadata on OCI supports full DevOps integration:

Terraform: Infrastructure as Code
OCI CLI: Scripting
Ansible: Configuration management
OCI DevOps: CI/CD pipelines

Example: Rolling out DB patches across multiple Exadata systems using Ansible playbooks:

- hosts: exadata_nodes
  become: true
  tasks:
    - name: Run Oracle patching
      shell: /u01/app/oracle/patches/runInstaller.sh -silent

My Advice to You

If you’re a cloud engineer or DBA tasked with handling mission-critical workloads, you owe it to yourself to at least evaluate Exadata on OCI.

Start with a Proof of Concept (POC). Use the Oracle Free Tier to try APEX + Autonomous DB, then gradually move towards Exadata Cloud Service for OLTP or data warehousing.

Set up monitoring using OCI Metrics, DB Resource Manager, and Cloud Guard for proactive security.

And trust me, once you see Smart Scan and RoCE in action, you won’t go back to generic IaaS.

Final Thoughts

Oracle Exadata on OCI is more than just hosting a database in the cloud. It’s an engineered system built from the ground up to meet the demands of high-performance, low-latency, scalable, and secure workloads.

If you’re working on:

BFSI workloads with real-time fraud detection
Telecom systems with massive CDR ingestion
E-commerce platforms with unpredictable traffic
Healthcare systems needing ultra-low latency for diagnosis platforms

Then Exadata on OCI isn’t just useful. It’s essential.

So take that next step — explore the documentation, spin up a sandbox, and test it for yourself. I’m here if you need help getting started.

Conclusion

If you’ve read this far, I hope you’ve gained some valuable insights into how Oracle Exadata on OCI can truly transform how you manage large-scale databases. It’s not just about moving to the cloud — it’s about adopting a smarter, faster, and more resilient way of working.

At Learnomate Technologies, we offer in-depth, hands-on training for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Exadata. Whether you’re a beginner or already working in cloud environments, our programs are designed to take you to the next level — technically and professionally.

Want to see more real-world demos, explanations, and walkthroughs? Head over to our YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com/@learnomate

For course details and expert support, visit our official site: www.learnomate.org

If you want to read more about different technologies, check out our blog page: https://learnomate.org/blogs/

And feel free to connect with me directly on LinkedIn: Ankush Thavali – LinkedIn Let’s grow and learn together in this ever-evolving cloud space!

Happy Reading

ANKUSH😎