Exascale is the underlying technology that serves as the foundation for this service. Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure is the next generation architecture of Oracle Exadata. It increases storage efficiency, simplifies database provisioning, and combines the extreme performance of Exadata smart software with the cost and elasticity benefits of modern clouds. Storage for database files resides in an Oracle Exadata Exascale Storage Vault. The Storage Vault provides high performance and scalable Exadata smart storage. Storage can be scaled online as needed, with a single command, and that storage becomes available for immediate use. Unlike Dedicated Infrastructure Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure does not require you to manage adding storage servers to the system, or manage storage allocations.

The following schematic overviews the overall high-level architecture of your VM Cluster and associated resources:

Figure 1-1 ExaDB-XS Architecture

The architecture consists of the following elements:

1. A single Exascale Vault, which provides storage for the databases
2. A set of VMs run on Oracle-managed multitenant physical database servers
3. VM filesystems, which are centrally hosted by Oracle
4. A virtual client network (VCN), which provides client and backup network connectivity

The basic unit of consumption in ExaDB-XS is a VM cluster. To facilitate VM portability, Exascale hosts storage for VM file systems on shared storage that is fully managed by Oracle. Oracle can migrate VMs across a pool of physical servers, because the VM filesystems that host the database binaries do not reside on local physical servers. VMs are migrated automatically as required for maintenance, or in the event of a system failure. VMs can also be scaled vertically by changing the number of Elastic Compute Processing Unit (ECPU) units, and changing VM memory allocation. An ECPU is an abstracted measure of compute resources. ECPUs are based on the number of cores elastically allocated from a pool of compute servers. You need at least 8 ECPUs per VM to provision a VM Cluster. VMs can be scaled in increments of 4 ECPUs. For more information about ECPUs, see: Compute Models in Autonomous Database.

In addition to Enabled ECPUs, which are active in the VM, you can also add Additional Reserved ECPUs for your VM. These Additional Reserved ECPUs are physically allocated on a physical server for future scaling of the Enabled ECPUs on your VM, so that you can scale up to meet future workload demands without requiring a restart or relocation of your VM. This option helps to control costs for variable workloads, because database licensing is based on enabled ECPUs. Also, when you reserve additional ECPUs, memory is added to the VM Cluster based on the Total ECPU count. For this reason, reserving additional ECPUs also provides a way for you to provision additional memory without the licensing expense associated with the additional cores.

The following schematic illustrates conceptual details associated with scaling CPU and memory resources:

Figure 1-2 Core Reservation and Scaling

The illustration shows the following active and reserved cores in a VM:

1. Eight ECPUs, which are in use and active.
2. Four ECPUs in reserve, which are guaranteed to be available, and standing by, although not in use.
3. A total number of 12 ECPUs in the VM, which is the sum of Enabled cores and Reserved cores.

The total number of cores in a core reservation consists of the sum of Enabled cores and Reserved cores. To scale up your resources without restarting your systems, you can enable the reserved cores. If you want to further scale up your resources, you can add more ECPUs in units of four to your core reservation, and scale up your Enabled and Reserved cores, using a rolling restart as ECPUs are added.

Exascale also provides the benefits of redirect-on-write storage technology. With ExaDB-XS, you can provision thin clones of pluggable databases (PDBs) quickly, with space efficiency, because unchanged blocks are shared between parent and clone PDBs without being duplicated. This feature can be especially useful for development and test environments. You can create numerous thin clones of a PDB economically. For example, you can potentially give each of your developers their own PDB clone on which to work. Because Exadata Exascale has all of the performance advantages of Exadata, development environments provisioned with thin clones are representative of Exadata production environments, and not merely copies of the data.

Learn how to access the Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure (ExaDB-XS) service.

Subscription to Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure can include all of the required Oracle Database software licenses, or you can choose to bring Oracle Database software licenses that you already own to Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure.

If you choose to include Oracle Database software licenses in your Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure subscription, then the included licenses contain all of the features of Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, plus all of the database enterprise management packs, and all of the Enterprise Edition options, such as Oracle Database In-Memory and Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC). Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure also comes with cloud-specific software tools that assist with administration tasks, such as backup, recovery, and patching.

Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure databases require Enterprise Edition - Extreme Performance subscriptions or you can bring your own Oracle Enterprise Edition software licenses.

The Enterprise Edition - Extreme Performance provides all the features of Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, plus all the database enterprise management packs and all the Enterprise Edition options, such as Oracle Database In-Memory and Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC).

At the time of release, Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure supports Oracle Database 23ai

For Oracle Database release and software support timelines, see Release Schedule of Current Database Releases (Doc ID 742060.1) in the My Oracle Support portal.

Learn about the available subscription types for Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure

The available purchase models are as follows:

Limits apply to virtual machine (VM) instance counts, total ECPU count, total local storage, and total High Capacity storage.

The limits set for Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure (ExaDB-XS) can be revised over time. The following table describes current service limits for ExaDB-XS resources:

See the Per-Second billing, minimums, and limitations on billing.

For each Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure virtual machine you provision, you are billed for the infrastructure for a minimum of 48 hours, and then by the second after that. Each ECPU you add to the system is billed by the second, with a minimum usage period of 1 minute.

Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure provides a variety of management interfaces to fit your use case and automation needs.

• Introduction to Exadata Cloud Management Interfaces
  The Exadata Cloud resources on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) are created and managed through a variety of interfaces provided to fit your different management use cases.
• OCI Control Plane Interfaces for Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure
  The OCI control plane accepts input from the OCI APIs, the OCI Console, and custom interfaces built with kits, tools and plugins provided to facilitate development and simplify the management of OCI resources.
• Local VM Command-Line Interfaces
  In addition to the OCI REST-based APIs, CLI utilities located on the VM guests, provisioned as part of the VM clusters on the Exadata Cloud Infrastructure, are available to perform various lifecycle and administration operations.