Syed, I have not seen this, it is informative. I see a mention of NDMP, is this what the ZFS appliance uses to backup directly from the cell server , and avoid the compute node? Thanks, Mike On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:43 PM, mike boligan <mboligan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: We are implementing Exadata and are in the process of evaluating backup appliances. We are looking at the Oracle ZFS solution and the EMC Datadomain solution. Anyone go through a similar evaluation recently? Our storage folks seem to be leaning towards EMC because it has more administrative features (for things like replicating to a DR site). I remember hearing our ACS person mention that the ZFS appliance will backup Exadata databases going only through the storage cell and not the compute node. I tried to find something to verify this but am unable to. If true, this would make this decision pretty easy, if you can confirm or deny this as well I would appreciate that. TIA, Mike -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l