Exadata Database Machine
Case Study Snapshots
Data Warehouse/ERP/Mixed Workloads/OLTP
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Case studies are grouped by workload types and related industry.
DATA WAREHOUSE 4
Direct Marketing 5 Direct Sales Marketing 6 Market Research 7 Market Research 8
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP) 9
Energy Products & Services 10 Global Real Estate Management 11 Healthcare 12 Mortgage Origination and Processing 13 Secure Logistics 14
MIXED WORKLOADS 15
Commercial Insurance 16 Consumer Packaged Goods 17 Customer Loyalty Management 18 Document Management 19 Electronics Retailer 20 Energy – Exploration 21 Energy – Production 22 Healthcare 23 Insurance 24 Telecommunications 25
DATA WAREHOUSE
Direct Marketing
This leading direct marketing agency provides the creative and targeted information clients need to hit the mark with their marketing campaigns. The company designs effective communications in a variety of media— direct mail, response television, interactive marketing — and coordinates each campaign.
Why Exadata
Trying to solve a capacity problem, this innovative and tech-‐savvy company was one of the earliest adopters of Exadata. They had run out of runway, out of space, out of CPU, out of everything. Their business needed a solution able to keep up with the demands of their growing customer requests.
Our consultants delivered a prompt Exadata implementation along with data compression capabilities.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata (2 x ¼ rack)
• Business intelligence applications (implemented by Deloitte) • Data warehouse
Benefits
• Enabled more client services by improving throughput • Reduced data storage costs by up to 30%
• A full scan of a table, even with filters, dropped from minutes to seconds • Queries now return only what was asked for, with no extraneous data • Reduced size of database without compromising performance by leveraging
compression technology
Direct Sales Marketing
This health and wellness company uses a direct-‐sales model to promote an expansive line of skin care, weight control and vitamin supplements. Their continually growing global network of independent distributors, place a high demand on the ecommerce site. System reliability and high performance are a must.
Why Exadata
The company’s rapid and unpredictable growth presented a potential threat to the long-‐ range success and stability of the company’s ecommerce website. Frequently, the database hit performance limits during peak order times. IT leaders were also
concerned about the lack of redundancy to avoid system outages. With future growth expectations running high, the company decided to build a future-‐proof platform by implementing a robust, highly available Exadata infrastructure.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata (1/4 rack high performance) • Oracle E-‐Business Suite for order processing • Oracle Real Application Clusters
Benefits
• Built robust platform for processing orders and sales commissions • Created a solid technology foundation for the future
• Resolved capacity concerns during peak order times
Market Research
This company specializes in providing its clients with millions of online research
panelists, enabling clients to interact with consumers and executives. The company also supports research study applications for ad effectiveness, brand comparison and
customer satisfaction. Why Exadata
The company had strained its legacy system to the max. Report times were
unacceptable, ranging from hours to days. Exadata was the best option to handle its massive data requirements: more than 10 databases and 23TB of data. Downtime had to be limited to hours per year. Every hour of downtime equated to a loss of nearly $100,000.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata Database Machine (x2-‐8) • Data Warehouse environments
• Oracle Warehouse Builder • Oracle Forms and Reports • Oracle GoldenGate
Benefits
• Consolidation of databases onto a single platform led to significant reduction in maintenance effort
• One-‐hour ETL process now runs in 10 minutes
• Another business process that took 24 hours to run was reduced to two minutes • Customer satisfaction has improved
Market Research
The company provides raw demographic data for marketing databases and helps customers integrate online and offline marketing strategies. They have over 15 offices around the world.
Why Exadata
Consistent, unwavering performance for every process was a must due to the massive amounts of data managed daily. The company invested in five Exadata full racks to meet the bandwidth demands. They embarked on a massive consolidation effort. The
environment was creatively segmented, sized and provisioned for top performance and ultimate utilization.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata v1 (2 full-‐racks) • Oracle Exadata v2 (3 full-‐racks) • Instance Caging
Benefits
• Significantly improved data aggregation performance • Massively consolidated servers across the enterprise
• Ensured consistent performance for all customers accessing the system • Created a segmented environment for development and production
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
(ERP)
Energy Products and Services
Leveraging over 800 manufacturing, sales and service centers worldwide, this provider supplies customer-‐focused solutions that best meet the quality, productivity, and environmental requirements of the energy industry.
Why Exadata
The fast-‐growing energy services company was challenged to keep up with ongoing acquisitions that created a maze of disparate business and engineering applications. As a result, a decision was made to consolidate on Oracle’s JD Edward applications and deploy new data warehouse and disaster recovery environment based on Oracle
Exadata. Today the new Exadata-‐driven data warehouse serves more than 30 enterprise and divisional applications.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata Database Machine • Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Benefits
• Provided trustworthy data from disparate business systems, into one data
warehouse allowing for timely and accurate decisions based on a standardized view of the business
• Improved decision-‐making with performance dashboards that enabled drill-‐downs into metrics and provided common view of the business from executive to
operational levels
• Delivered breakthrough information accuracy in the company’s proprietary applications
• Reduced lost revenue from inaccurate sales contracts
• Realized an immediate reduction in IT, business operations, and finance staffing costs
Global Real Estate Management
From American shopping malls to Parisian bistros, this property manager has spaces to suit. As one of the world’s largest commercial real estate companies, this organization operates more than 300 offices in 60 countries.
Why Exadata
Overwhelmed by a complex, fragmented, and unwieldy network of HP, Sun, and Linux databases, this company was forced to embark on a simplification and consolidation effort. Its application landscape included PeopleSoft HR and financials along with homegrown applications. The Exadata platform was chosen in an effort to lower costs, boost performance, and provide a unified central data repository for reporting.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata Database Machine (3 x ½ racks) • Oracle Data Guard
• Oracle Business Intelligence • Data Warehouse implementation
• Oracle’s PeopleSoft applications for HR and Financial management Benefits
• Enabled a global single source of data both for OLTP and data warehouse reporting, which is accessible worldwide 24x7
• Consolidated 32 databases on a single Exadata platform and moved all instances to a single serve to handle all incoming data
• Realized savings from decommissioning servers
• Data Guard replicates data between two U.S. cities over 1,000 miles apart • On track to reap cost savings from license consolidation and ease of maintaining
unified infrastructure
• “The strength of Exadata is that you can drop pretty much any application on it and it will run just fine – many times with improved performance”
Healthcare
Serving millions of Americans through thousands of clinics, this provider has one focus: healthy minds. A provider of managed care services, the company specializes in
managing the behavioral health components of benefit plans administered by
government agencies, health plans, and employers. The company’s services also include life coaching and wellness programs.
Why Exadata
From 2009 to 2011, the client base swelled—20% in 2009, 35% in 2010, and 50% in 2011—bringing with it a big jump in data and even bigger demands on its Oracle Database and warehouse solution. The company also wanted to ensure that its clients, which range from federal agencies to small businesses, had access to the most
pertinent, useful data on services and outcomes. The answer was to install an Oracle Exadata half-‐rack at its primary site and a quarter-‐rack at a second site.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata (1 x ½ rack and 1 x ¼ rack) • Oracle Data Guard
Benefits
• Achieved the scalability and reliability to support the massive volume of health data being generated by huge influx in clients
• Delivered highly granular analyses of member benefits and usage, aiding in tailoring treatment programs appropriately
• Created a platform to support 200 concurrent users
• Established a unified system, simplifying support and associated costs • Built an effective and scalable platform for the future
Mortgage Origination and Processing
This mortgage service provider offers a wide range of services for homeowners,
mortgage lenders, and mortgage investors. The company is one of the largest of its kind in the United States. Since it was founded in 2008, they have modified more than 195,000 mortgage loans, including 32,000 under the federal Making Home Affordable Program.
Why Exadata
For this organization, it was time to consolidate all of its business processes and
applications running on Oracle databases. This included a mix of Oracle’s PeopleSoft HR and financials applications, Oracle Fusion Middleware and WebLogic servers. In this case, two half-‐racks of Exadata V2 were implemented and applications from SQL Server and Oracle were migrated onto Exadata. They wanted the best, fastest equipment.” Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata Database Machine (2 x ½ racks) • Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c
• Oracle PeopleSoft
• Oracle Fusion Middleware Benefits
• Enhanced the company’s ability to conduct critical debt tests for customers
• Consolidation of databases onto a single platform has led to unprecedented levels of speed and synchronicity
• Built the first large data warehouse with the ability to scale with their growing
Secure Logistics
This company is a global leader in payment security, guarding services and supply chain management with 75% of its revenue generated outside North America.
Why Exadata
The company had a large Oracle footprint with databases running suites of Oracle applications. When an internal, custom system suffered a major outage, executives were forced to find a more reliable and highly available platform. The company needed a single source of data for reporting to enable better business decisions, as well as the ability to leverage their vast amounts of data to gain competitive advantage.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata Database Machine • Oracle Data Integrator
• Oracle Business Intelligence applications in data warehouse environment • Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise applications for HR and financial management Benefits
• Helped build positive relationships with key customers and provide more efficient deliveries
• New data warehouse led to more productive measurement of routes and carriers • Supports mixed OLTP and data warehouse workload
• Created a robust platform for cash management
• Created the capacity and scalability to move into Big Data applications
MIXED DATA WAREHOUSE
Commercial Insurance
This is an independent, privately owned, insurance broker that provides tailored solutions for individuals and businesses in a variety of specialty industries both domestically and internationally.
Why Exadata
Growth and change had brought on a sprawl of multiple databases and data centers. Consolidation became a key objective for the company: unify the datacenters, standardize all the databases on Exadata, and make the system easily accessible and friendly for its highly distributed user groups. Things were decentralized with DBAs from various user groups running independently.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata Half Rack
• Split Rack Configuration (2 quarter-‐racks) • Resource Management via Instance Caging • Oracle Data Guard
Benefits
• Realized value and performance gains within three months of implementation • Consolidated 24 databases onto single Exadata platform
• Experienced significant improvements in system performance • Built cost-‐effective platform for the future
• Gained the ability to do large consolidation projects
Consumer Packaged Goods
The company seeks out the finest natural and organic foods available, maintains the strictest quality standards in the industry, and has an unshakeable commitment to sustainable agriculture. The company operates more than 310 stores worldwide. Why Exadata
This fast-‐growing retailer has been adding stores and expanding operations for several decades. The revenue boost has been welcomed, but it also resulted in an IT
infrastructure that was equally expansive. The company was running nearly 20 Oracle databases and 14 different physical hosts. The solution was to launch a broad-‐based initiative that consolidated the company’s sprawling footprint onto a unified, high-‐ performing, and scalable Oracle Exadata platform.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata (3 x ½-‐racks) that host PeopleSoft HR applications and multiple custom databases
• Each system provides standby for one another Benefits
• Consolidated 20 databases onto one platform to support multiple custom applications
• Achieved high availability and disaster recovery for all Oracle hosted databases • Simplified the IT support model, moderating ownership costs
• Enabled easy and cost-‐effective system expansion pathway • 95% improvement in query times
• Massively improved performance: up to 95% faster execution times for certain processes
Customer Loyalty Management
The company is a leading provider of direct marketing and customer relationship management services. They send more than 40 billion emails each year and help companies develop marketing campaigns and programs to build customer loyalty and grow their business. Additional services include data collection analysis and database integration.
Why Exadata
After years of acquisitions and putting more emphasis on marketing technology, the technical infrastructure was showing the strain of managing massive volumes of customer data. For one customer, data volumes approached 14 TB. They needed to support 4,000 transactions per second and try to get everything back to the end-‐user in two seconds. To meet its own exacting standards for performance and speed, Exadata X2-‐8 was selected.
Solution Footprint • Oracle Exadata X2-‐8 • Oracle Active Data Guard • Oracle Advanced Compression • Oracle Enterprise Manager Benefits
• Achieved unprecedented data processing speed and efficiency – both for online transaction processing and data warehousing
• Gained real-‐time processing capabilities to better design marketing and loyalty campaigns
• Acquired a standard management solution equating to cost savings and efficiency improvements
• Achieved transaction speeds 5x to 12x greater than traditional database solutions • Built cost-‐effective platform for future
“Oracle Exadata has enhanced our service offerings, enabling us to deliver new value-‐ add services to the market by achieving transactional processing speeds that were
Document Management
This company provides information management, tax services, and legal consulting to a variety of industries. The operations have grown to more than 80 offices in six countries. Why Exadata
Corporate mergers and acquisitions put strains on the company’s reporting systems — the core function of this business. The legacy architecture could not scale to match the growth requirements. As a result, the critical databases were migrated to Exadata using Oracle Golden Gate to minimize downtime.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata Database Machine • Oracle Database for OLTP and reporting • Oracle GoldenGate used for migration
Benefits
• The scalable Exadata platform will enabled the business to easily manage a rapidly growing database
• Database easily supports 500 schemas that are used for its client base • Experiencing expansion and enhancement of analytical reporting
Electronics Retailer
The company has more than 200 stores nationwide, as well as a robust online business. Why Exadata
In 2012, database consolidation was the focus in light of pending acquisitions. The growing online store had greater reporting and order management requirements. Another drawback in their current system was the need to shut down inventory resolution procedures in order to run transactions. This problem became severe on holidays or peak sale days. They were able to address the issues above and more by moving to an Exadata platform.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata (2 x 1/4 rack)
• Oracle GoldenGate during migration from Oracle Database 10g • Oracle E-‐Business Suite (planning to migrate it to Exadata)
Benefits
• Improved processing time of reports enables employees to provide accurate, professional customer service
• The company has seen inventory run times drop from 45 minutes to 2 minutes • Transaction processing times jumped from 60 per minute to 500 per minute • Data warehouse reporting performance was drastically improved
Energy -‐ Exploration
The company operates in all of the world’s major oil-‐producing regions, including the U.S., Middle East, Canada, Brazil, Africa, and the North Sea.
Why Exadata
This major exploration firm needed to eliminate disruptive performance issues with their existing IBM AIX system. This system also managed their financial and operational reporting, including their PeopleSoft and business intelligence applications, as well as their data warehouse. The best solution to meet all of the demands was Oracle Exadata. Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata Database Machine • Data Warehouse
• Oracle Business Intelligence Applications • Oracle PeopleSoft applications
Benefits
• Increased system performance by 10-‐50x
• Data warehouse loading time dropped from three days to two hours, enabling faster financial reporting and better business decisions
• Efficiently managed a 33% increase in data warehouse size and 10% increase in PeopleSoft application usage
Energy Production
This is a rapidly growing independent energy company primarily engaged in
unconventional natural gas and crude oil exploration, development, and production. In the last ten years, this organization has evolved into a top-‐ten energy producer in the country.
Why Exadata
This company’s exponential growth made it difficult for systems to handle the explosion in data processing needs. This demanded a system with the ability to pull this
information together quickly and as seamlessly as possible. Exadata was chosen to support growth by creating a more efficient data warehouse with faster ETL and reporting run times.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata Database Machine
• Oracle E-‐Business Suite (implemented by Deloitte) • Data warehouse
Benefits
• The Exadata solution allowed for an overhaul of the IT infrastructure resulting in increased operational efficiency
• Enabled managers to rapidly process large volumes of data to accurately assess where and when to drill for energy resources and estimate the costs
• Reduced ETL run time from 4 hours to 35 minutes
• Boosted reporting performance, shrinking average time to generate one report from 15 minutes to 3 minutes
• Saved on storage costs – and delivered better performance – compared to traditional system with multiple disc trays
Healthcare
The company provides occupational health and urgent care services through a network of more than 300 medical centers and 20 workplace clinics in 40 states. Services include lab tests, vaccinations, employment screening, and urgent care.
Why Exadata
Exadata was adopted as a consolidation platform for its legacy system: a patchwork of various versions of Linux, SPARC, and HP servers running two different E-‐Business Suite environments. Because of the limitations of the platform, business processes were becoming less efficient and revenue recognition was taking longer.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata (1/4 rack x2)
• Oracle E-‐Business Suite applications Benefits
• Real-‐time data availability enabled urgent care clinics to better serve their patients • Accelerated processing of receivables
• No outages after 18 months on Exadata
Insurance
This organization is a leading provider of insurance and wealth management services for millions of consumers and businesses worldwide.
Why Exadata
Insurance companies around the world have been seeking a competitive advantage by mining the vast stores of claims data for all lines of business. This stored most of its commercial, personal and claims information in a data warehouse used by executives for business analytics.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata Database Machine Benefits
• Consolidated more than six databases and 100 applications onto two racks of Exadata
• Created an IT platform that could scale to easily handle spikes in data volumes during period ends
• Ensured fast, reliable access to claims and business analytics from data warehouse
Telecommunications
This organization provides telecommunication services to a particular subset of telecom users. The company designs, installs, and maintains telecom systems that provide collect, prepaid, and debit calling for institutional user bases. Other services include billing, collections, call validation, and fraud management.
Why Exadata
The constant growth of the user base resulted in an explosion of data. Standard
database technology was not able to keep pace with the company’s growth. Given the nature of the business, system availability and performance was a must regardless of the database size. Exadata was the only platform for this job.
Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata Database Machine (1/2 rack)
• Database runs on 4-‐node Real Application Clusters data warehouse (7 TB) to store call information
• Import-‐export utilities ensured smooth migration of multiple TB databases
Benefits
• Reports can be run on data sets that span from months or years. • Reduced IT costs
• Enabled a highly available and reliable call system
ON LINE TRANSACTION PROCESSING
(OLTP)
Media and Entertainment
This Media and Entertainment company develops high quality console, PC and online role-‐playing games.
Why Exadata
Publicly available entertainment titles required a robust end-‐to-‐end solution that was capable of loading up to 1 TB of gameplay data per day for one of it’s market-‐leading games. To achieve this, the company realized it would need to implement a data warehouse and exploit the power of parallel processing, partitioning, and external tables on a scalable platform. Oracle Exadata was selected as the ideal solution. Solution Footprint
• Oracle Exadata Database Machine Benefits
• Enabled processing of huge volumes of data on daily basis
• Exadata solution has scaled exceptionally well, is easily extensible, and very reliable • ETL time went from four hours initially to around 45 minutes
