FlashGrid SkyCluster and AWS RDS service are two distinct solutions for running Oracle Databases in AWS cloud. Each solution has its advantages in certain usage scenarios. The objective of this comparison is to provide information that will help with selecting one of the two solutions based on customer’s requirements.
| SkyCluster | AWS RDS | |
|---|---|---|
| Key advantages | Active-active HA Full control Flexibility Performance Oracle RAC lift-and-shift | Simplicity Lower administration effort |
| Solution type | Virtual appliance hosted on EC2 instances | Database-as-a-Service |
| Who manages database and OS | End-customer or partner | AWS |
| High availability architecture | Active-Active based on Oracle RAC. 2, 3, or more DB nodes | Active-Standby |
| Failover time | Zero | Up to several minutes |
| Downtime for maintenance | No, rolling updates | May be needed |
| Database versions | 19c, 18c, 12.2, 12.1, 11.2 | 12.2, 12.1, 11.2 |
| Replication with DataGuard | Yes, within region or across regions | Only within one region |
| Oracle Cloud Control (OEM) | Yes | No |
| Database features | All | Some features not supported |
| Database size | Virtually unlimited with EBS storage | 64 TB max |
| Storage IOPS | With EBS: up to 80K per node, scalable with number of nodes. With local SSDs: over 1M IOPS | Up to 80K per node |
| Storage throughput | With EBS: up to 1750 MB/s per node, scalable with number of nodes. With local SSDs: up to 40 GB/s | Up to 1750 MB/s |
| CPU performance | Scalable with number of nodes | Limited by single EC2 instance |
| Backup/restore | Using RMAN | Using storage snapshots |
| Custom OS security hardening | Yes | No |
| Billing | By AWS (EC2 + Marketplace fees) | By AWS |
Rama Kolli, Sr. Director – Database Management, S&P Global Ratings
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