Comparing FlashGrid Cluster and Oracle Database@AWS for running mission-critical Oracle databases on AWS

Well suited for mission-critical transaction processing workloads that require 99.99%, 99.999%, or higher database uptime targets.

Active-active Multi-AZ database clustering can protect against data center and Availability Zone outages.

Reduced operational complexity by using native and elastic AWS resources such as EC2, EBS, VPC networking, IAM, and CloudWatch.

All-flash AWS EBS storage and Oracle ASM mirroring provide predictable storage performance without dependence on caching.

Available in all AWS regions since 2017.

Strong fit for very large Exadata migrations, analytics/DWH workloads, and workloads that benefit from Exadata-specific capabilities such as Smart Scan and Hybrid Columnar Compression.
 
Lower cost per TB may be possible for capacity-heavy workloads because the primary storage consists of high-capacity spinning disks (with flash cache acceleration).
 
Exadata infrastructure managed and supported by Oracle.

Software-defined virtual cluster appliance hosted on native AWS EC2 instances and EBS storage volumes.

A jointly delivered Oracle/AWS service that provides OCI-managed Oracle Exadata infrastructure inside AWS data centers.

Customer manages database software, Grid Infrastructure, OS, FlashGrid software, and EC2 instances.

Customer manages database software, Grid Infrastructure, OS, and VMs, with Oracle cloud automation.

AWS infrastructure software updates are managed by AWS and are transparent to the customer.

Exadata infrastructure software updates are managed by Oracle. Exadata infrastructure updates may require patching or upgrading Grid Infrastructure and/or Oracle Database software; Oracle documents this dependency in the Oracle Release Schedule of Current Database Releases (Doc ID 742060.1) footnote 1.

Deployed using native AWS resources such as EC2, EBS, VPC networking, IAM, and CloudWatch.

Uses AWS resources plus OCI-managed Exadata infrastructure, OCI parent/child site concepts, ODB networks, ODB peering, and cross-service IAM/access-management.

Yes

Yes

RAC One Node
 
Single-instance Enterprise Edition database failover
 
Standard Edition HA (SEHA)

RAC One Node

A single active-active Multi-AZ database cluster protects against data center and Availability Zone outages within an AWS region with zero RPO and near-zero RTO.

A single Exadata VM Cluster is deployed within one AWS Availability Zone. For protection against AZ failure, Oracle’s recommended architecture uses two separate Exadata infrastructures/VM clusters in different AZs (with synchronous Data Guard replication for zero RPO) or in different regions (with asynchronous Data Guard replication and non-zero RPO).

Some functionality, such as control plane operations, Autonomous Recovery Service and OCI Vault, also depends on OCI parent region availability.

Predictable storage performance with all-flash AWS EBS volumes, without dependence on caching.

Full-table scan acceleration with Smart Scan and storage offload. Random-access acceleration with Smart Flash Cache and XRMEM cache. Performance may depend on how much of the active dataset is served from memory/flash versus high-capacity spinning disks.

All-flash AWS EBS storage combined with additional 2-way or 3-way Oracle ASM mirroring across Availability Zones.
 
Illustrative durability based on EBS gp3 volume durability, independent ASM mirroring across Availability Zones, and one EBS volume per Availability Zone:
 

• 99.9996% (<0.0004% annual failure rate) with 2-way mirroring
• 99.9999992% (<0.0000008% annual failure rate) with 3-way mirroring

Exadata High Capacity storage uses Oracle ASM mirroring across three storage servers and a tiered architecture with disk, flash, and memory acceleration. Oracle does not publish a directly comparable per-volume durability percentage for Exadata Database Service.

Flexible capacity from 1 TB to 1000+ TB usable.
 
With very large (>100 TB) databases, higher cost per TB may result from the exclusive use of flash storage.

Minimum Exadata X11M infrastructure configuration is 2 database servers and 3 storage servers, with 240 TB total usable disk storage capacity.

Lower cost per TB may be possible for very large (>100 TB) databases because high-capacity spinning disks are used with flash/memory acceleration and because Hybrid Columnar Compression can reduce storage consumption for suitable analytics/DWH data.

On-demand deployment, usage, and resizing using native AWS EC2 instances and EBS storage volumes.

Requires provisioning of Exadata hardware resources, with a minimum of 2 database servers and 3 storage servers. Storage scale-down is constrained: removing storage servers is subject to Oracle service limitations and whether the added storage has already been allocated for VM cluster consumption.

In production use since 2017.

Generally available since July 2025.

Yes, in all AWS commercial regions.

Yes, in select AWS commercial regions. See Oracle’s current regional availability list.

Yes, in all AWS GovCloud regions.

No.

Yes.

No.

Yes, in all AWS China regions.

No.

Supported.

No. Current documentation lists Oracle Database 19c and Oracle Database 26ai for Exadata Database Service.

AWS expertise only.

Oracle Cloud expertise in addition to AWS expertise.