ODA X10 lineup now supports Standard Edition 2

Introduction

6 months ago, Oracle introduced the new Oracle Database Appliance X10 lineup. The biggest surprise came from the supported editions: these new ODAs were Enterprise Edition only! This was because Standard Edition 2 license conditions were not compatible with AMD Epyc processors inside X10 servers. Each AMD Epyc processor is physically equivalent to a 4-socket processor package unlike Intel processors. And as you may know, Standard Edition 2 is limited to a 2-socket configuration at best. So what’s new 6 months later?

Did ODA support Standard Edition from the very beginning?

The ODA is on the market since 2011, and the 4 first generations were Enterprise Edition only appliances. These first ODAs were 2-nodes only, like HA now, and dedicated to RAC clusters, solving complexity issues DBAs encountered when deploying RAC on normal servers. RAC was a very popular option at this time.

It’s only starting from 2016 with the introduction of X6-2 lineup and the lite ODAs (S/M/L single node models) that Standard Edition was then allowed. Previously, starting price of an ODA configuration was the HA ODA itself plus an Enterprise Edition processor license, for something around 90.000$, as far as I remember. A lite ODA and a Standard Edition processor license lowered the base price to something less than 40’000$.

This is no coincidence that ODA started to become very popular among clients who were not able to afford this solution before. Remember that ODA’s catchwords are: simple, reliable, affordable. This definitely makes sense starting from 2016.

Oracle Database Appliance and Standard Edition 2

Standard Edition 2 and ODA S/L is a great combination for a lot of needs.

If your databases are rather small, if you can easily plan maintenance windows and if you don’t need extra options limited to Enterprise Edition, Standard Edition 2 is a real bargain. Mostly because it’s not expensive whereas it shares the same binaries as Enterprise Edition. Actually, Standard Edition 2 is just an Enterprise Edition with some disabled features. You will not be able to use parallelism for example, and some maintenance tasks are not possible online. There is no Data Guard but you can buy Dbvisit Standby instead. And it’s OK for a lot of databases.

ODA is still a great system in 2024: with Epyc processors, plenty of RAM, NVMe disks and a smart sofware bundle. I would recommend S or L ODAs, as HA is more adequate when using Enterprise Edition.

Associating ODA S/L and Standard Edition 2 makes a powerfull database setup with an affordable price tag. At dbi services, we have a lot of clients using this kind of configuration. ODA and Standard Edition 2 is the perfect match.

What’s new regarding SE2 support on ODA X10?

First, documentation has been updated according to this “new” compatibility.

ODA X10 means plenty of CPU resources. When using Enterprise Edition, clients are used to license only a small number of cores. For Standard Edition, clients were used to license sockets, meaning having all the cores available. It’s not true anymore with ODA X10. Starting from 19.22 (the current ODA patch bundle), you will need 1 Standard Edition 2 license for 8 enabled cores on a node. The core reduction (odacli modify-cpucore) must now be applied according to the number of Standard Edition 2 licenses you want to enable.

Here are the SE2 license configuration for each ODA:

Regarding HA, it should be possible to deploy databases on one node only using single instance databases, meaning all the cores on one node only. But both nodes will have the same number of cores, and one node will not be used for databases. Not sure if it’s the best configuration.

Is it better or worse than before?

First, these new conditions only apply to X10 lineup. If you’re still using X9 and prior ODAs, nothing changed.

You could see that using more cores will cost more, and it’s true. But a 8-core ODA is already a very capable machine. It will also make the ODA X10-L even more appealling compared to X10-S: only one PROC license is now required for minimal needs but with the possibility of adding disks later. It’s definitely a more secure choice as you will keep your ODA for 5 to 7 years. Nobody really knows what will be your database needs beyond 3 years.

Let’s talk about pricing: ODA X10 and SE2

The X10-S is an entry price point for a small number of small databases. Most of S ODAs are for using Standard Edition 2 databases.

The X10-L is much more capable with 2 CPUs and twice the RAM size, and the most important thing is that it can get disk expansions. This is the best ODA in the lineup and the most popular among our customers.

The X10-HA is normally for RAC users (High Availability). The disk capacity is much higher than single node models, and HDDs are still an option if SSDs capacity is not enough (High Capacity vs. High Performance versions). With X10-HA, big infrastructures can be consolidated with a very small number of HA ODAs. But does it make sense with Standard Edition 2? Not in my opinion.

Prices are from the latest Technology and Exadata price lists (1st and 8th of March, 2024).

Does it make sense to order X9-2 models instead of X10?

X9-2 lineup still being available, one could ask which is the best one. X10 is a brand new system with AMD Epyc supposed to be more powerfull compared to X9-2. As having less cores but running at higher speed is better when using Standard Edition 2, X10 has the advantage. The only thing that could make the difference is on the storage side: X10-L is limited to 8x 6.8TB disks, meaning 54.4TB RAW. X9-2L can have up to 12x 6.8TB disks, meaning 81.6TB. It’s not really enough to justify buying an old X9-2L. Maximum storage capacity is normally not an issue among Standard Edition 2 users. Furthermore, X10 is not so new anymore, meaning that you won’t be an early adopter if you buy one.

Conclusion

ODA X10 and Standard Edition 2 is a great combination again. The new licensing rules are quite a normal move regarding the CPU specs of X10 ODAs. Capacity On Demand, which made the success of the ODA lineup, is now also a reality for Standard Edition users and it’s OK.