Exadatas are amazing machines. They have some extraordinary capabilities. And they are quite expensive. I mean, really quite expensive. And we need to re-buy them every few years as they age.
A client came along one day and asked me "what can we do to cut the bills?"
I said "Nothing. Pay the money."
And they said "We don't want to! Can't we do something cheaper?".
"erm"
"Look, can you get us off those f*cking Exadata machines?"

This is a short story explaining if I could.