Sorry, sasha, I did not mean to overwhelm you with techno speak.
Let me try again.
Oracle's raw metal "database appliance" is the "engine", if you will, of a database implementation. It contains the programming that Oracle has created to manage a database of information. It can contain the data also, but the only data that it can contain is the data being managed by the database engine. What makes the database appliance new and innovative that the operating system is not a full-fledged Windows NT or Unix operating system. It has been stripped of all functions and code except those required to run the database appliance. It only runs Oracle's code and contains Oracle data.
NetApp's filers is not a database engine. It is not designed not run any code whatsoever, except for the proprietary code included from NetApp. Filers are design to store and serve up data very fast, very reliably and with a minimum of administration. Filers can contain data from virtually any source, including Unix and Windows servers and clients. Filers can also manage Oracle (and Informix and Sybase and SQL Server) database--not the database engines themselves--just the data. The advantage is that the filers are very fast.
Filers gain their speed advantage by using a special operating system that does only the tasks necessary to store data and deliver it to the network. They also gain speed by a patented method of storing and retrieving the data on disk. I won't get into those details, unless you insist.
So you see, Oracle is delivering a "database appliance" to run the Oracle system and store Oracle data. NetApp is delivering a "data server appliance" which will not run any program, but will serve data to any other program very fast, simply, and reliably.
Hope that helps. |
