Exadata Memory Expansion Kit

It’s always interesting to dig into the spec sheets for Exadata hardware, especially when those "minor" details like memory clock speeds change the performance profile of the whole rack.

Understanding the Exadata X2-2 Memory Upgrade

I was just looking at an Exadata X2-2 ordering document and noticed that it included 144GB of RAM. The sales rep pointed at the Exadata X2-2 datasheet and showed the 96GB to 144GB memory expansion option.

Technical Specifications: Nehalem Architecture and Clock Speeds

Based on my reading of Intel Xeon (Nehalem) memory configurations, as long as each channel has a single dual-ranked module, all the memory can run at full 1333MHz speed. (Update: as noted in the comments, this is unfortunately not the case in Exadata; with the expansion unit memory runs at 800MHz). It populates the normally-empty third socket for each memory bank with an additional memory module.

The Value Proposition: Performance vs. Cost

It isn’t particularly cheap: $6250 per database node at US list price, but is a performance booster that doesn’t have ongoing support costs either. 

Strategic Benefits for OLTP and Data Warehouse Environments

For OLTP environments, I like to say cache is still king, and even for those of you with pure data warehouses, 50% more PGA space can help out your sorts too.

Historical Context and Availability

And yes, I realize this isn’t particularly new; according to Kerry Osborne’s blog it came out (but wasn’t officially announced per se) at the same time as the storage expansion racks in the summer.

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