Storage Tier Performance Characterization in Oracle Exadata Systems

Abstract

Storage tier performance plays a central role in shaping the responsiveness, scalability, and reliability of
Oracle Exadata systems. This article presents a structured performance characterization framework that
evaluates latency, throughput, and concurrency behavior across memory, flash, and disk storage tiers under
diverse workload patterns. The results indicate that memory residency provides the most consistent
performance for transactional workloads, flash tiers support mixed and analytical scenarios efficiently when
access patterns are stable, and disk tiers become performance bottlenecks under high concurrency or
unpredictable query execution. The study highlights the importance of aligning data placement, caching
strategies, and SQL workload structure with Exadata’s tier-aware optimization mechanisms to achieve
sustained performance stability.