Oracle Linux? 250
eldavojohn writes "There have been rumors floating around of Oracle working on their own distribution of Linux. If this is true, it is widely believed that this enterprise edition of Linux would be in direct competition with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. What is spurring the rumors? Well, Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison said, 'I'd like to have a complete stack. We're missing an operating system. You could argue that it makes a lot of sense for us to look at distributing and supporting Linux.' I know that Oracle has been doing a lot more than databases recently, will they go the extra mile and create their own stripped down Linux kernel? If they do, will companies switch to database solutions that are running Oracle only software for the benefits of support and (hopefully) stability?"
Definitely has uses but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
All similar but different enough to drive an IT guy batty. Too much of a good thing?
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Re:Definitely has uses but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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A CIO in a mixed environment would probably bite as the advantages would be pretty apparent.
Re:Definitely has uses but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The IT guy's main headache for a database server is going to be the interaction between the database and the OS. The issue is that the server is supposed to run best on a version of Red Hat with some weird extra things enabled. Red Hat doesn't entirely understand this stuff, because they don't use it for any other configurations. Oracle understands it (they wrote it), but they're not doing tech support for Red Hat. The OS is sufficiently different from a usual Linux box that the IT guy has no clue when things are breaking. When the company I was working for got one of these, it was further complicated because the hardware didn't come with anything set up, and came from a third vendor. So we got a machine from Dell, the OS from Red Hat, and the database program from Oracle, each shipped separately, and they couldn't be tested independantly.
I think it would make perfect sense for Oracle to distribute and support a Red Hat-derived Linux distribution exclusively for production servers. At least then there would be a vendor who would understand the thing.
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Uh sorry, but you're wrong on most of your points.
Oracle runs on Red Hat Enterprise or SUSE Enterprise (I might have the names mangled a bit) both with relatively straight-forward settings. Everything is included in the distributions. Yes, Oracle donated some of the code that makes it into those distros.
Furthermore, Oracle provides *full* support for the Linux OS itself when you have a properly licensed copy of Oracle.
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kernel.shmall = 2097152
kernel.shmmax = 2147483648
kernel.shmmni = 4096
kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128
fs.file-max = 65536
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 1024 65000
net.core.rmem_default = 262144
net.core.wmem_default = 262144
net.core.rmem_max = 262144
And then you'll need async i/o.
yum install libaio
The above all taken from HJR -- www.dizwell.com > insta
Re:Definitely has uses but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This didn't happen by chance. But it meant that you could be reasonable certain no obscure kernel settings were incorrectly set (at least not by an oversight, didn't stop people setting the wrong settings when tuning).
At the time Oracle were talking with Hewlett Packard about a stripped down HP-UX to build "Oracle Servers" on PA-RISC. It made sense then, and it still makes sense, except HP-UX is no longer the "obvious choice" for an Oracle server.
To be honest, I think in the GNU/Linux world, it is choice of certified hardware that is probably as important, if not more so, for Oracle, than choice of distribution. Since I've been bitten by underdocumented, under tested, RAID hardware or Linux drivers for same (the effect is the same, no matter where the fault lies). If you are aiming for really high availability on an Oracle database, buying the solution as one stop from Oracle makes sense.
I doubt cost-wise it would be that competitive with DELL and Redhat, at least initially, but for some applications hardware cost is irrelevant compared to unplanned downtime.
Something like Debian, or Ubuntu, with long support periods, and completely freely redistributable base (with builtin rebranding -- "no Mozilla says you can't call it..." hazzles), is the obvious sort of base. Although presumably BSDs might be an option as well. Or Oracle might still want a big corporate backer for their distro variant.
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With a nice GUI to manage things like adding more storage, and clustering it could be a HUGE hit.
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A number of years ago, Oracle came out with "Raw Iron", which was a configuration where Oracle ran on an intel box without any operating system. They found that much of their customer support was helping sys admins configure the operating system so that Oracle would run well. They also found that most customers used a dedicated database server, so the only thing running on that box was Oracle. As a result, they tried to eliminate the O/S and add a layer that interfaced Oracle to the hardware.
I would gue
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In that case, why go with Linux? I'd think they'd want some kind of a minimal RTOS: a scheduler, demand-paged VM, TCP/IP stack and a simple filesystem. Basically all it's going to do is switch among Oracle threads and a network daemon, and hammer the d
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But linux is a good buzzword for marketing right now, and I imagine it's rather hard to find good assembler guys these days. Plus it's a lot easier to support multiple architectures this way, and I'm sure they have customers using serious non-x86 hardware to worry about.
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Those didn't seem to go anywhere.
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The only companies who would be interested in such things would be companies transtioning from small to mid-sized status. I doubt there's enough of them to generate enough reve
Try a different approach. (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd get your BIOS updates, OS updates and database updates from a single company that could afford to do the testing so the load on your IT department would be reduced.
You could even order it in a cluster configuration.
But what good is a database server on its own? With a bit more work, you'd be able to buy a webserver box (hardware, OS, Apache, etc) pre-configured to hook into the database server they sold you.
From Oracle's point of view, this would be a great way to get even more of the market and to stop any gains from MySQL or others.
From the corporations' point of view, this would be a great way to reduce IT costs by reducing the load on your internal IT department.
If Oracle does it right, they'd even be able to offer you dial-on-demand DBA services for their products. Why pay 6 figures to hire an Oracle DBA when you can pay 5 figures for a DBA service contract with Oracle?
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Suppose Oracle supports their own, reduced, version of Linux (with any performance enhancements that they deem necessary). If they "partnered" with a hardware vendor, you'd have a single stop for your database server needs.
You've always got stuff like this:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/linux/valida ted-configurations/index.html [oracle.com]
They could get it so you could buy everything through them easily enough, they'd just need to coordinate and give the other companies a sli
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Re:Try a different approach. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just about every restaurant, self storage company, florist, doctors office, and goodness knows what else uses vertical software. And guess what? Odds are pretty good they bought the computer, cash drawer and what ever from the same place.
If technology isn't your business it makes a lot of sense to just buy a package and support so you can go about your job.
Just like buying a Tivo is a better solution for a lot of people that building a MythTV box.
I took me a long time to learn this but for most people a computer is just a thing they have to use to do their job.
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That's interesting, considering the installation manual for 8i on SPARC Solaris only requires 128M of memory, twice the amount of system memory available as swap space, and a CD-ROM drive. I would imagine that the requirements for AIX or HP-UX were similarly onerous. Was your systems group just trying to get by with SuSE with an old laptop or something? The Oracle 9i Migration Guide explicitly says that if you don't change your configuration
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who cares if Oracle makes their own. You certainly wouldn't have to worry about a lot of factors...ie,
And many many more. If oracle took control of all this you wou
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Imagine one system on AIX, two on a recent Solaris, two on an old Solaris for legacy software, linux on a couple of small clusters (less than 50 in each) plus some file, web, mail servers and an assorted blend of desktop computers all wrangled by one person. We're already going to get driven batty.
Interesting Larry info (Score:2)
OpenSolaris? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to say that 2.6 doesn't have bunches of enterprisey (<-technical term again) features, but Solaris is still a leader in that space.
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But he also seemed to think that Oracle would start rolling their own OS -- and brought up more than once that by acquiring Novell, they would pick up Suse. This seem
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I personally would love to see it since they'd have to fix OEM to work better with a non-IE browser.
On a side note, when I took the class, all the workstations that we used to do the lab por
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I could be wrong, but Oracle used to be targeted towards Solaris and everything else was a port from that target, but in recent years Oracle has chosen Linux as the target. Again, I could be misremembering here.
Nonetheless, I think its about time that Oracle has become and OS, because it pretty much is an OS to begin with. An Oracle box is pretty much an Oracle box, hopefu
Re:OpenSolaris? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:OpenSolaris? (Score:4, Informative)
Agreed that Solaris would provide more enterprise-grade (<—marketing term) features than Linux, although zones are becoming less compelling given the rise of virtualization, and I hear that ZFS doesn't provide the performance boost on SANs that it does on JBODs.
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Without total world domination, Larry Ellison can't become the richest man in the world, right?
One quasi-word: dtrace (Score:3, Insightful)
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I wonder if IBM's ears are perking up?
David Syes
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Save money on $0.00 software [opensolaris.org]? Okaaaay...
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It seems that many don't share your view, as their market share is currently increasing.
vertical integration and stovepipes (Score:2)
They should know that they won't really have a "complete stack" until they're implementing their own hardware base, so they can provide truly turnkey datacenter solutions. And where did that NC thin client concept go? And here comes Sun with their datacenter-in-a-truck solution.
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Red Hat has no worries with this (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm posting anonymously because I'm an Oracle DBA ('nuff said). Oracle does a make a nice database, but it is hugely bloated for most purposes. And everything else they write is just pure unadulterated crap.
If you look at what it takes to implement their ERP or Pharmaceutical Suite you will realize that they will only ever be a niche player with their own Distro. They write software to require the maximum amount of administration and consulting possible. Their consulting division make a ton of money and th
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I am surprised that you are a DBA....had a look at 10G, did you realize how many times you read the word automatic in the release notes , lets count a few:
1) Automatic memory managment , DBA's spent weeks and nights to configure their memory, now its automatic
2) Automatic storage managment, if you have'nt heared about that, then its a nifty piece of SW
3) Automatic segment managment...the name says it all
4) Automat
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Heh, probably "automatic" as in "we removed the tools and hid the config parameters". So now consultants/DBAs who can still figure out how to do this can command 3x their current rates, because ordinary DBAs don't have a prayer of fixing this when it goes wrong.
I'm reminded of something similar with SQL Server, something lik
Better late than never... (Score:3, Funny)
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Those of us who have problems persuading PHB's to go the Linux route will have another way to make them wake up and smell the coffee. A move like this will help kill the old 'Linux is only used by nerds' prejudices and further establish it's place in the datacentre. Today the datacentre, tomorrow the desktop (cue marching bands playing Souza, fireworks, cheerleaders, etc. )
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I'm sorry, but I've worked in some Fortune 50 datacenters, and no one from the CIO on down has that attitude anymore. Maybe there's some shops with some brand-loyal morons, but Linux is very much the establishment now.
Now just try pushing OpenBSD or even Debian over Redhat and see how far you get.
Oracle Linux vs Red Hat... (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt it is terribly bad news for Red Hat. Even if Oracle create their own distro I doubt they would get away with ceasing to certifying their products for any other Linux distros. There are simply to many people with already established contractually sealed working relationships with SUSE and Red Hat. Of course Oracle will recommend the use of Oracle Linux®
Good for Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Why build their own? (Score:2)
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(Let me save you the trouble... "Qualified? You must be new here.")
Oracle should stick to databases (Score:3, Insightful)
Basically I'm wondering why Oracle want to pinch consumers away from Fedora and Ubuntu instead of just working with them to help intergrate their databases more seamlessly into these distros?
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Have they ever been known to be that cooperative? Oracles in it for the money, baby. If a significant number of customers want to run Oracle on Linux, Oracle wants a piece of that OS pie, and they'll take it away from Red Hat if they can (which is a very good chance).
This is a terrible idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, it would be a subtle fork, but Oracle has enough trouble keeping track of it's DB. I don't think they clearly understand the headache involved in maintaining an operating system.
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I know they already build custom RedHat distros for their large clients (usually just a couple of special packages, but anyways).
Oracle Oxymoron... (Score:3, Funny)
Not So Fast.... (Score:2)
If they need to do that, they might. But I don't see anyone in the business world going above and beyond the minimun necessary to sell something.
Twist up their own Debian-based distro and make it sales/support policy to support only theirs, at a fee they feel the market is willing to buy at. Intentionally avoid testing or supporting any other distro and you've got something that's as good as a proprietary OS. Sure, source/patches may be available, but th
Oracle Appliance (Score:4, Interesting)
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It won't really compete with RHEL (Score:4, Insightful)
Except as a platform to run Oracle on. Oracle doesn't really understand fairness or openness, in large part because its founder doesn't. I'm not saying that they can't figure it out - IBM, after all, went from the most closed of corporations to one of the main sources of energy into commercial open software - but I've always considered IBM to be kind of a special case anyway. Regardless, I have a hard time seeing the industry embrace an Oracle-controlled linux distribution.
It is possible that an acquisition of Novell could bring in enough fresh blood to turn this around... And it would bring in an already-respected Linux distribution.
On the other hand, it makes a whole lot of sense that Oracle would start shipping a Linux LiveCD that runs the Oracle installer, which can be a bitch to get running anyway, and upon which you can run Oracle if you install it to the hard disk. After some time they could switch it to be the only supported platform for Oracle. If you don't want to run it directly on the iron, run it in a virtual machine - although unless you're on ESX or something (whatever it's called now) that's probably going to come with a dramatic performance penalty.
Regardless, it only makes sense for Oracle to provide their own Linux. Why help Redhat? Redhat makes competing products.
the Cisco way... (Score:2)
Its the Application and not the Operating System (Score:2)
Why GNU/Linux? (Score:2, Interesting)
They've already dabbled with NetBSD... (Score:2)
... for their network appliance [cbbrowne.com] systems.
And Larry mentioned [com.com] NetBSD for an Oracle database appliance a long time ago.
But, with their recent Linux focus, any NetBSD bias probably evaporated long ago. Linux is flashy, and because of this it is easier to find admins and apps.
Oracle Linux works better as a threat than reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, if Oracle tries to build their own distro, market it via their existing sales channels, and support it via their existing system, Oracle Linux will truly suck. The pricing will be outrageous, the sales process will be the "car dealership" model, and the support will be the offshore model that is not all that great. Oracle makes a great product, but they are their own worst enemy sometimes.
If I were Larry, I would create a great deal of hype about doing my own Linux distro, to soften up the price of Red Hat in anticpiation of a takeover.
too far (Score:2)
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Calling all zealots. (Score:4, Insightful)
Mind you, crusaders, that I am posting this from my Linux-enabled laptop.
Linux is a buzzword. BSD is not. (Score:3, Insightful)
Flaming on! (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Lackluster commercial support - Linux tends to have better hardware support, drivers, etc.
2) SMP support on the *BSDs is still young and immature. Linux, in comparison, is quite mature, and does very well on an 8-way system. BSD *might* do it, but much beyond 4-way is a sail into uncharted waters. I'm already running a cluster of 4-way boxen, so 8-way or more is not very far off, given our company's annual 2x growth curve.
3) "It's different". Yeah, it's very similar, but if you're already used to the "Linux" way, having to rediscover how services get initialized (a la
4) Linux is "good enough". It's obvious that whatever metric is needed to be able to be "enterprise ready", Linux has passed it. Granted, nobody agrees on what that standard is, but most people agree that Linux can do it.
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Oracle is very cluster focused (Score:2)
Insert Disk - Go .... very cool (Score:3, Insightful)
Oracle needs to be good on Linux (Score:2)
Oracle did not work well on Red Hat Linux for us, in fact, it worked ve
Do you know what Oracle stands for? (Score:5, Funny)
Raging
Asshole
Called
Larry
Ellison
Really now... (Score:2)
Didn't see this mentioned (could have missed it)- (Score:2, Interesting)
Moo (Score:2, Interesting)
So, even if they made ice cream, or pocket-protector protectors, i'd have to take a look.
In Linux, i use Debian. They also try to do thing correctly, though they have their pitfalls. I'm a bit suprised Oralce didn't choose Debian, but i'd
Reboot process (Score:4, Funny)
update SYSV_INIT.INITLEVEL='6';
commit;
(or something like that. I'm a SysAdmin damnit, not a DBA)
mail a CD with a desktop for mindshare (Score:3, Insightful)
Not buyin' it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't it already? (Score:2)
Kernel? (Score:2)
Probably, they'd toss together a fairly normal distribution with stripped down support for application software and and easy installer for the Oracle database.
Going the extra mile, knowing that they have some rather large government clients, they might also try to implement the fixes for any IAVAs that they can by default.
Pre-Configured Servers (Score:2)
Oracle will provide a 4u box that is an all in solution. Plug in and go. DB Server in a box.
Oracle ERP could be shipped the same way.
Now what if other vendors came onboard with this.
For any large package setting up the server and installing, configuring the software is a nightmare. But I'll buy an overpriced box from you if you configure everything before it ships. Oh, and I'll pay through the nose for you to support it. No my staff won't t
name suggestion (Score:2)
Oracle Linux (Score:2)
Nice idea, but not. (Score:2)
However, in the real world, we don't support isolated boxes. My database servers are required to integrate with our LDAP directory and security architecture properly. RedHat
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hrmpf... (Score:3, Funny)
Since we are in Japanese mode, how about Baka Linux?
10 flame warrior experience points and a puff of karma to the first one who figures out why I should be modded down for that suggestion.
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Making thier product faster, will actually reduce their profits. Thusly, it will never happen as you said.
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You know, there are these people called contractors [reference.com] who are not employees but who often are called upon to create, improve, maintain, and use those databases.
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http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/tech_top
Read it completely. Later information pointed to the fact that Oracle employees assisted in the "correct licensing" for the state.
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For that matter, why does anybody pay for SuSE or RHEL? Sometimes the value is not just in the actual bits. Maybe it's the confidence that "this will just work, and if it doesn't there's somebody to call a