Oracle Exalytics V1 Patch Set 1 is now GA

The Oracle Exalytics v1 Patch Set 1 is now generally available (GA). In fact, it has been available for a couple of weeks now. The update to Exalytics, the industry's first engineered in-memory analytics machine, delivers new capabilities, performance optimizations, Hyperion Planning, and Endeca Information Discovery.

This V1 Patch Set (v 1.0.0.1),  is recommended for all new and existing Exalytics customers.

So what's new in this update? Well, the software bits are new, as in updated. The three updated components of the Oracle Exalytics  v1 update are:

• Oracle BI Enterprise Edition 11.1.1.6.2 BP1
• Oracle TimesTen for Exalytics 11.2.2.3.0
• Oracle Essbase 11.1.2.2.100

As you may be aware, the Oracle BI Enterprise Edition 11.1.1.6.2BP1 update provided several new capabilities across the board, the two biggest being enhancements in the area of visualizations and a revampled mobile app for the Apple iPad device. New Trellis visualizations - basically a grid of charts - that make it easy to visualize and understand massive data sets. When combined with the performance that Exalytics delivers, you get true speed-of-thought analysis. These Trellis visualizations support rendering data as new microcharts, like the SparkLine, SparkBar, and SparkArea microcharts. These are compact, cell-sized, data-dense visualizations and allow users to quickly discern the shapes and trends of data.

On the topic of in-memory analytics and performance, faster aggregate creation is now available, since both TimesTen and Oracle BI EE have been enhanced to enable faster data loads. Enhancements include parallel data load, index creation and disabling redo logging.

Separately, there there is a smaller footprint for TimesTen aggregates. The Oracle BI Server now generates a TimesTen optimized schema to significantly reduce the memory footprint used.

There is a Model Checker, faster query performance, and Faster aggregate recommendations.

With Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Release 11.1.2.2, Oracle Hyperion Planning is supported on the Oracle Exalytics machine.

Oracle Endeca Information Discovery can now run on Exalytics with these versions:

• Oracle Endeca Information Discovery 2.3.0
• Oracle Endeca Server 7.3.2.

Then you also get Oracle Data Integrator certified to target TimesTen for Exalytics, and Oracle GoldenGate for TimesTen has been certified against TimesTen for Exalytics as a target.


And a bunch of other hardware related enhancements like Storage Area Network (SAN) Certification, and Auto Service Request (ASR) for Hard Drives.

Oracle Exalytics Documentation Library (link)

Exalytics Business Intelligence Machine in Thomas Kurian's Keynote

The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.

The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle’s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

Thomas Kurian, Executive Vice President, Product Development at Oracle, showcased the newly launched Exalytics Business Intelligence Machine at his Oracle OpenWorld keynote.

Dramatic improvements with Exalytics, including 20X better response time, 80X faster MOLAP reads, and 15X better response times for Planning applications.

A new in-memory cache that is services by the TimesTen database. An adaptive cache algorithm that ensures that frequently accessed data is kept in-memory, thereby reducing or altogether eliminating Database hits.

The first screenshot above, in the top row, is that of Map Views - geo-spatial visualizations in the OBIEE 11g suite; the second is a new type of Scorecard visualization, known as the Strategy Wheel; the third is a screenshot from the BI Mobile app running an OBIEE Dashboard page; and the fourth is showcasing a new Trellis multi-panel visualization.

Enhancements and new capabilities in the Essbase MOLAP engine to take advantage of Exalytics.

Dave Granholm doing a demo of Exalytics.

Master-detail linking allows for in-Dashboard analysis, instantaneous updates of content on your Dashboard. 

Close to a BILLION records are analyzed. Prompts that refresh at the speed of thought. Search-as-you-type capabilities.

Microcharts, aka Sparklines, in their myriad forms: whether as sparkbars or sparklines, with highlighting of low and high values help visualize in an understandable manner massive amounts of data within the small confines of a single screen.

A close-up of a line graph souped up with master-detail linking.

Start at any level of aggregation.

Drill down any path, across the row or column edge of the view to drill to a deeper level of insight.

Each sparkline cell in the Trellis view is serving up tens even hundreds of data points. Multiply by a dozen rows and dozen or more columns and you are truly talking about meaningful dense data visualizations.

I need to have access to this same dashboard as I leave the office and bring out my iPad.

Adding this Dashboard as a Favorite means it is easier to access.

Like from my BI Mobile iPad app. With a consistent user-interface that is nonetheless optimized for a multi-touch gestural interface that is provided in the Apple iPad tablet.

More information, including a BI Mobile app demo in Balaji's general session.

Oracle Exalytics Business Intelligence Machine

The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.

The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle’s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

Here's some information on the "Oracle Exalytics Business Intelligence Machine" that was announced by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison at its conference, Oracle OpenWorld, in San Francisco.

• "The Exalytics machine includes 40 processor cores and 1TB of DRAM, but can hold five to 10TB of data in memory thanks to compression, Ellison said." (link)
• "It runs a software stack that includes parallelized versions of Oracle's TimesTen in-memory database, BI (business intelligence) stack and Essbase OLAP (online analytical processing) server, Ellison revealed." (link)
• 4 x 10 Core Intel Xeom CPUs (slide from Larry Ellison's keynote)
• H/W Scan rate of 200 Gigabytes per second (slide from Larry Ellison's keynote)
• The industry's first in-memory BI machine
• Best-in-class enterprise BI platform, in-memory analytics software, and hardware optimized to work together
• Advanced data visualization and exploration to quickly provide actionable insight from large amounts of data
• "The Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation running on Oracle Exalytics features a number of enhancements including mobile enablement of existing dashboards and reports, native look and feel, better interactivity support, ability to bookmark and save reports and dashboards for offline interactive viewing etc." (from the White Paper)
• ..supports optimum SQL generation for Oracle Exadata.

Oracle Exalytics Trellis Charts View provide better visual data discovery

As a historical sidenote, I had written the PRD on Trellis views some time back - it felt terrific to see these visualizations in action.

Press coverage

Oracle Exalytics attacks ‘big data’ analytics — Tech News and Analysis - GIGAom.com

Exalytics, a high-end server appliance for near-real-time business intelligence applications and a big part of Oracle’s big data response, debuted Sunday night at Oracle OpenWorld 2011.

Ellison unveils 'Exalytics' in-memory machine - Computerworld

The Exalytics machine includes 40 processor cores and 1TB of DRAM, but can hold five to 10TB of data in memory thanks to compression, Ellison said.
It runs a software stack that includes parallelized versions of Oracle's TimesTen in-memory database, BI (business intelligence) stack and Essbase OLAP (online analytical processing) server, Ellison revealed.

Oracle’s Ellison Introduces Faster System to Challenge SAP, IBM - Businessweek

Larry Ellison Wants Data to Move Faster - NYTimes.com

Oracle’s Ellison Introduces Faster Data System in Challenge to SAP, IBM - Bloomberg

“Everything runs faster if you keep it in DRAM -- if you keep it in main memory,” Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison said in a keynote address at a conference in San Francisco tonight. “You ask more questions, you get better answers.”
The Exalytics Intelligence Machine Ellison introduced will run Oracle’s Times Ten and Essbase databases, both gained through past acquisitions, in its terabyte of main memory.

• You can catch videos at Oracle OpenWorld Live
• There's also a 3-D demo available of the machine.
• Also check out the Oracle OpenWorld blog at http://blogs.oracle.com/oracleopenworld/

Screenshots from the keynote:

The slide announcing Exalytics

The software underpinnings of Exalytics: OBIEE, TimesTen, Essbase.

Speed-of-thought analytics; Trellis views, instant prompts refreshes

Heuristic Adaptive In-Memory Cache

Performance graphs of Exalytics; average response time improvement: 18X

Average response time improvement with Exadata Oracle Database data source: 23X

In summary

And here's the video replay of the CEO keynote: