John Fowler, Oracle executive VP of systems, pointed to two tall, gray, free-standing computer servers ten feet to his left on a stage at the Oracle OpenWorld 2015 conference in San Francisco, and admiringly referred to them as “beautiful new babies—a bit sharp around the edges.” The two servers, specifically an Oracle SPARC M7 and an Oracle SuperCluster M7, are the end result, not of a “sudden” infatuation but, instead, of a five-year-plus journey that has pushed hardware forward as an equal partner in the software company’s strategy to offer cutting-edge enterprise technology and cloud services.
Fowler was following up on Oracle’s introduction earlier in the day of the new SPARC M7 microprocessor, the sixth—and most revolutionary—iteration of the microprocessor line Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems five years ago. The M7 incorporates unique hardwired security and performance functions using a technique known as “software in silicon.”
The new processor comes from the same engineering effort that has produced Oracle’s Engineered Systems—complete kits of tightly integrated, highly tuned hardware, software, and networking. Such Engineered Systems as Oracle Exadata Database Machine, introduced in 2008, and Oracle SuperCluster, which is its highest-end server cluster and is based on the SPARC processor architecture, are aimed at making enterprise computing more efficient, more manageable, and more cost effective.
That’s why Fowler referred to the new systems—and the M7 microprocessor that powers them—as “a step function in how people manage and run [IT] infrastructure.”
Several individuals involved with Oracle's Engineered Systems initiative and by extension the new M7 processor, offered insights into the company’s hardware imperative:
- Dimension Data, an IT services company with 15 global data centers, employs Oracle SuperCluster servers for demanding enterprise workloads like ERP. Due in part to the Engineered System’s high performance characteristics, the company’s customers can realize “at least 60% cost saving over their current platform,” said Baba Nadimpalli, global client executive for Dimension Data.
- The M7’s unique “software in silicon” functionality resulted in part from database advancements related to the company’s original Engineered System, Oracle Exadata, explained Juan Loaiza, senior vice president of systems technology. In building the Exadata Machine, Oracle created a “smart platform” of advanced database features that exploited hardware capabilities such as “scale out” and In-Memory database processing. The M7 was the result of “moving smart platform functions into the chip,” Loaiza explained. For example, algorithms used to speed up in-memory databases are incorporated in co-processor “engines” that are wired directly onto the chip. Such enhancements to “smart platform” and “software in silicon” will continue, Loaiza said. “This is the architecture of the future.”
- The hardwired security features of the new processor are of a piece with the company’s end-to-end, “always on” security strategy for both on-premises systems and cloud services, said Ganesh Ramamurthy, Oracle senior vice president of product development. For instance, the M7 incorporates high-performance encryption functions that help safeguard “data at rest” and “data on the wire,” while its silicon-secured memory (a memory allocation feature) automatically safeguards “data in memory,” a vulnerability usually addressed by resource-intensive software applications.
Similarly, the new SuperCluster M7 incorporates “out-of-the-box security controls,” said Ramamurthy, including “Extensible Automated Compliance Verification,” which enables automatic checking of applications and database for compliance with vertical industry standards and requirements. “You have security enabled by default,” Ramamurthy said.
Oracle’s hardware-software engineering efforts are not sudden, not superficial, and not transitory—as evidenced by the radically innovative M7. “Oracle is about dramatic engineering and building dramatic products,” Fowler said.
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