Introduction
Oracle Database Appliance X10 is not so old, but X11 is already out, available to order.
Let’s find out what’s new for this 2025 series.
What is an Oracle Database Appliance?
ODA, or Oracle Database Appliance, is an engineered system from Oracle. Basically, it’s an x86-64 server with a dedicated software distribution including Linux, Oracle Grid Infrastructure (GI) including Automatic Storage Management and Real Application Cluster, Oracle database software, a Command Line Interface (CLI), a Browser User Interface (BUI) and a virtualization layer. The goal being to simplify database lifecycle and maximize performance. Market position is somewhere between OCI (the Oracle public Cloud) and Exadata (the highest level engineered system – a kind of big and rather expensive ODA). For most clients, ODA brings both simplification and performance they just need. For me, ODA has always been one of my favorite solutions, and undoubtedly a solution to consider. X11 doesn’t change the rules regarding my recommendations.
To address a large range of clients, ODA is available in 3 models: S, L and HA.
For Enterprise Edition (EE) users, as well as for Standard Edition 2 (SE2) users, ODA has a strong advantage over its competitors: capacity on demand licensing. With EE you can start with 1x EE processor license (2 enabled cores). With SE2 you can start with 1x SE2 processor license (8 enabled cores). You can later scale up by enabling additional cores according to your needs.
On the processor side
X11 still rely on Epyc series for its processor, according to Oracle recent long-term commitment to AMD.
Is the X11 CPU better than X10 ones? According to data sheets, ODA moves from Epyc 9334 to Epyc 9J15. This latest version may be specific to Oracle as it doesn’t appear on the AMD website. Looking at the speed, Epyc 9334 is clocked from 2.7Ghz to 3.9GHz, and Epyc 9J15 is clocked from 2.95Ghz to 4.4Ghz. As a consequence, you should probably expect a 10% performance increase per core. Not a huge bump, but X10 was quite a big improvement over X9-2 Xeon processors. Each processor has 32 cores, and there is still 1 processor on X11-S and 2 on X11-L. As X11-HA is basically two X11-L without local disks but connected to a disk enclosure, each node also have 2 Epyc processors.
Having a better CPU does mean better performance, but also less processor licenses needed for the same workload. It’s always something to keep in mind.
RAM and disks: same configuration as outgoing X10
Nothing new about RAM on X11, the same configurations are available, from 256GB on X11-S, and from 512GB on X11-L and each node of the X11-HA. You can double or triple the RAM size if needed on each server.
On X11-S and L models, data disks have the same size as X10 series: 6.8TB NVMe disks. X11-S has the same limitation as X10-S, only 2 disks and no possible expansion.
X11-L also comes with 2 disks, but you can add pairs of disks up to 8 disks, meaning 54TB of RAW storage. Be aware that only 4 disk slots are available on the front panel. Therefore, starting from the third pair of disks, disks are different: they are Add-In-Cards (AIC). It means that you will need to open your server to add or replace these disks, with a downtime for your databases.
X11-HA is not different compared to X10-HA, there is still a High Performance (HP) version and a High Capacity (HC) version, the first one being only composed of SSDs, the second one being composed of a mix of SSDs and HDDs. SSDs are 7.68TB each, and HDDs are 22TB each.
Network interfaces
Nothing new regarding network interfaces. You can have up to 3 of them (2 are optional), and you will choose for each between a quad-port 10GBase-T (copper) or a two-port 10/25GbE (SFP28). You should know that SFP28 won’t connect to 1Gbps fiber network. But using SFPs for a network limited to 1Gbps would not make sense.
Software bundle
Latest software bundle for ODA is 19.25, so you will use this latest one on X11. This software bundle is also compatible with X10, X9-2, X8-2 and X7-2 series. This bundle is the same for SE2 and EE editions.
What are the differences between the 3 models?
The X11-S is an entry level model for a small number of small databases.
The X11-L is much more capable and can get disk expansions. A big infrastructure with hundreds of databases can easily fit on several X10-L.
The X11-HA is for RAC users because High Availability is included. The disk capacity is much higher than single node models, and HDDs are still an option. With X11-HA, big infrastructures can be consolidated with a very small number of HA ODAs.
Model | DB Edition | nodes | U | RAM | RAM max | RAW TB | RAW TB max | base price |
ODA X11-S | EE and SE2 | 1 | 2 | 256GB | 768GB | 13.6 | 13.6 | 24’816$ |
ODA X11-L | EE and SE2 | 1 | 2 | 512GB | 1536GB | 13.6 | 54.4 | 40’241$ |
ODA X11-HA (HP) | EE and SE2 | 2 | 8/12 | 2x 512GB | 2x 1536GB | 46 | 368 | 112’381$ |
ODA X11-HA (HC) | EE and SE2 | 2 | 8/12 | 2x 512GB | 2x 1536GB | 390 | 792 | 112’381$ |
You can run SE2 on X11-HA, but it’s much more an appliance dedicated to EE clients.
I’m not so sure that X11-HA still makes sense today compared to Exadata Cloud@Customer: study both options carefully if you need this kind of platform.
Is X11 more expensive than X10?
In the latest engineered systems price list (search exadata price list and you will easily find it), you will see X11 series alongside X10 series. Prices are the same, so there is no reason to order the old ones.
Which one should you choose?
If your databases can comfortably fit on the storage of the S model, don’t hesitate as you will probably never need more.
Most interesting model is still the new X11-L. L is quite affordable, has a great storage capacity, and is upgradable if you don’t buy the full system at first.
If you still want/need RAC and its associated complexity, the HA may be for you but take a look at Exadata Cloud@Customer and compare the costs.
Don’t forget that you will need at least 2 ODAs for Disaster Recovery purpose, using Data Guard (EE) or Dbvisit Standby (SE2). No one would recommend buying a single ODA. Mixing S and L is OK, but I would not recommend mixing L and HA ODAs just because some operations are handled differently when using RAC.
I would still prefer buying 2x ODA X11-L compared to 1x ODA X11-HA. NVMe speed, no RAC and the simplicity of a single server is definitely better in my opinion. Extreme consolidation is not always the best solution.
Conclusion
ODA X11 series is a slight refresh of X10 series, but if you were previously using older generations (for example X7-2 that comes to end of life this year) switching to X11 will make a significant difference. In 2025, ODA is still a good platform for database simplification and consolidation. And it’s still very popular among our clients.