Oracle on Tuesday rolled out the latest version of Exadata, the platform for running the Oracle database. The new Exadata X9M platforms are faster and more cost-effective than previous generations. 

The Exadata platforms include versions for on-premise, Oracle public cloud, and Oracle's hybrid Cloud@customer offering. The ability to run the same platform in the cloud, on-premise or in a hybrid environment sets it apart from the competition, Oracle says -- as does the fast online transaction processing (OLTP) it offers. 

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With the X9M, "we keep doing what we're really good at," Juan Loaiza, Oracle's EVP of Mission-Critical Database Technologies, said to reporters. Namely, "increasing performance, capacity, scaling benefits" while keeping the cost the same. 

To begin with, the X9M platforms improve OLTP performance by 70% over the previous generation, now at 27.6 million read IOs per second and IO latencies of under 19 microseconds. Leveraging 32-core Intel Ice Lake CPUs, it has 33% more cores for processing data than the previous generation. 

In terms of analytics scan throughput, the X9M is 87% faster than the previous generation. To speed up analytics applications, each rack delivers over 1 TB/sec of analytical scan throughput and provides up to 576 CPUs in intelligent storage servers to process low-level SQL queries, analytics and machine learning algorithms.

The new platform is significantly more cost-effective. Oracle added 28% more storage capacity, 33% more cores and 33% higher memory capacity with no change in price. 

The Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M offers similar OLTP, analytics and cost improvements. That includes scan rates up to 80% faster, 87% higher IOPS, and SQL read latency of less than 19 microseconds. Higher performance at the same price reduces costs by up to 47% compared to previous generation systems.

Oracle says that the Exadata Cloud@Customer is significantly faster than the competition, claiming the X9M delivers 50X better OLTP latency than Amazon RDS using all-flash storage and 110X better OLTP latency than Microsoft Azure SQL. For analytics, Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M delivers up to 25X faster throughput than Microsoft Azure SQL and up to 72X faster throughput than Amazon RDS.

Oracle's Autonomous Database is available via Exadata Cloud@Customer, and it now offers support for small databases running fractional CPUs. 

Software enhancements supplement the cost and performance improvements. For instance, Oracle has automated multi-VM support for better consolidation, and it's offering new maintenance scheduling. 

Oracle is also rolling out new features to its Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance, including synchronization between multiple Recovery Appliances to enable backup and recovery continuity during unplanned and planned outages.

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