Comparing FlashGrid and Amazon RDS for Oracle
Comparing FlashGrid and Amazon RDS for Oracle
FlashGrid Cluster and Amazon RDS service are two distinct solutions for running Oracle Databases on AWS cloud. Each solution has its advantages in specific scenarios. This comparison aims to provide information to help select the most appropriate solution based on customer requirements.
FlashGrid Cluster for Oracle RAC
FlashGrid Cluster for Oracle Failover HA
Amazon RDS
Amazon RDS Custom
Key advantages
Active-Active HA
Full control
Flexibility
Performance
Oracle RAC lift-and-shift
Active-passive HA
Full control
Flexibility
Performance
Simplicity
Lower administration effort
More control
Lower administration effort
Solution type
Virtual appliance hosted on EC2 instances
Virtual appliance hosted on EC2 instances
Database-as-a-Service
Database-as-a-Service
High availability architecture
Active-Active
2, 3, or more Oracle RAC nodes
Active-Passive
Based on Oracle Clusterware.
Active-Passive
None
(Must rely on Data Guard replication)
Failover time
Zero
Up to several minutes
Up to several minutes
N/A
(Up to several minutes with Data Guard)
Downtime for maintenance
No downtime with rolling updates
May be needed
May be needed
May be needed
Database size
Unlimited
Unlimited
64 TB max
64 TB max
Storage IOPS
Up to 400k per node
Up to 400k
Up to 256K
Up to 256K
Storage throughput
Up to 12,500 MBPS per node
Scalable with the number of nodes
Up to 12,500
MBPS
(up to 30,000
MBPS with
additional storage
nodes)
Up to 4,000 MBPS
Up to 4,000 MBPS
CPU performance
Scalable with number of nodes
Limited by single EC2 instance
Limited by single EC2 instance
Limited by single EC2 instance
Dedicated Hosts for managing Oracle licenses at physical host level instead of per-vCPU
Yes
Yes
No
No
Bare-Metal instances for managing Oracle licenses per-core instead of per-vCPU
Yes
Yes
No
No
Backup/restore
Using RMAN
Using RMAN
Using storage snapshots
Using storage snapshots
Custom OS security hardening
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Applying Oracle one-off patches
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Database version upgrades
Upgrade schedule 100% controlled by customer
Upgrade schedule 100% controlled by customer
Database versions 11.2, 12.1, 12.2, 18c
Available
Available
No longer available
Version 11.2 no longer available