With elastic storage expansion, you can dynamically increase your storage capacity to meet your growing workload requirements.

Expand the storage capacity on-demand by scaling up the infrastructure with additional storage servers. You can allocate additional storage capacity available from the newly added storage servers to the already deployed VM Cluster without disrupting the current running workloads. Additional storage capacity from newly added storage servers is also available for provisioning new VM Clusters on the infrastructure.

With the elastic storage expansion capability, you can:

• Provision new Exadata Infrastructure with custom storage capacity.
• Start with a smaller storage footprint for the Exadata Infrastructure at install time.
• Expand the storage capacity on existing deployed Exadata Infrastructure on-demand in an automated, elastic fashion.
• Allocate additional storage capacity available from newly added storage servers to already deployed VM clusters and/or use them for provisioning new VM clusters on the infrastructure.

Elastic scaling of Exadata Storage Servers is subject to the following conditions:

• The Exadata Cloud@Customer system configuration must be based on Oracle Exadata X7 hardware, Oracle Exadata X8 hardware, Oracle Exadata X8M hardware, or Oracle Exadata X9M hardware.
• Each Exadata Cloud@Customer system configuration can have an absolute maximum of:
  • X7, X8: 12 Exadata Storage Servers
  • X8M, X9M, X10M: 64 Storage Servers
• Exadata Infrastructure deployed with base configuration shape can only be expanded using base expansion SKU storage servers.

• Exadata Infrastructures deployed with X7 generation at install time can be scaled with X8 generation storage servers. X8 storage servers used to scale X7 infrastructure will only present the same total usable capacity as all other X7 storage servers that are already part of the infrastructure.

• Exadata Infrastructures deployed with X8M generation at install time can only be scaled with X8M or higher generation storage servers. X9M and X10M storage servers used to scale X8M infrastructure will only present the same total usable capacity as other X8M storage servers that are already part of the infrastructure.
• Exadata Infrastructures deployed with X9M generation at install time can only be scaled with X9M or higher generation storage servers. X10M storage servers used to scale X9M infrastructure will only present the same total usable capacity as other X9M storage servers that are already part of the infrastructure.

Exadata Infrastructures deployed with additional storage servers will be configured as an Elastic shape with the total number of storage servers and usable capacity clearly called out for the given infrastructure.

Before you can scale the number of Exadata storage servers, review the site and network requirements, and the checklists to prepare and deploy Exadata Cloud@Customer. Ensure that you have worked with sales and followed the procurement process. The following figure provides you with an overview of the order and deployment process.