Oracle Linux Explored 167
M-Saunders writes "Two days ago Slashdot reported on Oracle's move into the enterprise Linux market, and how it may challenge Red Hat. Red Hat's stock has already dropped, and there's a great deal of talk about the implications of this act. Linux Format got hold of the 'Unbreakable' distro to find out what's going on under the hood. Is it a breakthrough for Linux in the corporate market, or just another RHEL respin? See the article for all the info and screenshots — including an 'interesting' choice of GRUB colours."
Its the support costs that are interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Unusually, Oracle are claiming that they will support your operating system indefinitely as part of the Premier Support package which works out at $1199 and $1999.
These lifetime models get pretty interesting - you don't know if they are financially viable until a few years have gone by.
But I've seen a few health clubs, airlines and government pension plans so on, suffer on the weight of their liabilities such as lifetime memberships, lifetime frequent flyer points, a unfunded retirement pensions.
That is actually a big risk over a 10 year period..
Michael
Re:Its the support costs that are interesting (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.oracle.com/technologies/linux/ubl-ds.p
That's $1199/$1999 *annually*, and "Lifetime" is defined as 5-8 years.
Re: (Score:2)
If that's true how is Oracle's support any better than Red Hats? They support RHEL for 7 years from release. Heck, we're still running v2.1 and getting updates.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Its the support costs that are interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
only have to support until target DB retired (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Like the database, the costs of support for the product are ongoing
Installing Oracle on linux (Score:4, Insightful)
I would be more than satisfied if they come with an easy solution for installing Oracle flawlessly on most linux flavors!
--
Superb hosting [tinyurl.com] 200GB Storage, 2_TB_ bandwidth, php, mysql, ssh, $7.95
Re:Installing Oracle on linux (Score:5, Insightful)
This may be a more practical alternative. Anybody who's installed Oracle on Linux knows that, compared to the open source databases popular on Linux, it's a true PITA. Furthermore, in most cases where you'd want to use Oracle instead of the open source choices, it's running on a dedicated machine. So why not give customers complete support all the way down to the iron?
I see this distro as making sense on database appliances, or servers that are for practial purposes database appliances, although those servers may be massive.
Personally, I don't see customers going with Oracle Linux for general purpose servers that run a mainly open source applicaiton stack.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
From the times I've installed Oracle the database, and various other Oracle products, I'd have to agree. Total PITA.
And other products, like IAS or Oracle reports when you need a $DISPLAY to run? Heck, I can even recall Oracle Reports needing a WINDOW MANAGER running on that $DISPLAY. On a server product?
"Personally, I don't see customers going with Oracle Linux for general purpose servers"
Personally, I have a hard time seeing anyone going with Oracle Linux for any purpose
Re: (Score:2)
Because supporting your own Linux distribution is a nightmare, and something that Oracle certainly doesn't want to do. IMHO, this move was meant to engage Red Hat in a price-war which they could not win, culminating in a deal over JBoss (which Red Hat purchased, putting them in direct competition with Oracle for the lucr
Re: (Score:2)
Au contraire. It's only a nightmare if you allow people to do anything other than run Oracle and a small handful of tools. Think of a system running this version of linux as an Oracle appliance - at least, if the people at Oracle are not complete tools.
For those applications which tend to run by themselves on a piece of hardware with nothing but monitoring tools to keep them happy, it
Re: (Score:2)
What kind of installer *won't* run as root, but then tells me part way through to run certain scripts *as root*?!?!
Yes, I've had the pleasure of installing Oracle. What a crappy brain-dead piece of crap...
Re: (Score:2)
The root.sh gives you a really simple way of verifying what the installer is doing to your system. Once you start running in higher security environments it becomes more common to seperate bits of the enviroment out to seperate OS users (listeners etc) - having the seperate root scripts lets you make sure the installer isn't doing something to break your carefully setup security plan.
Re:Installing Oracle on linux (Score:5, Interesting)
That would be nice, but how about if instead of a full-fledged distro, they put out a barebones Linux+Oracle, all set up and configured, that is then run in a virtual machine. Sort of an "Oracle Appliance". Saves the hassles of supporting various distros, and even saves the hassle of supporting an entire single distro (since people will install other things than Oracle on their "Unbreakable Linux"es).
I haven't used Oracle products in several years. Anyone know why they aren't doing this (or are they, and I am just ignorant)?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Installing Oracle on linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the whole reason they're doing this is because they're pissed off with Redhat for buying JBoss when Oracle wanted it.
I kid you not. Search Google for comments from Larry just after Redhat made the purchase and you'll see why.
This is just continuing that. Oracle at the time said they were considering their own Linux distro in an attempt to compete with Redhat. To paraphrase Ellison...
This isn't going to make any real difference to Redhat in the long term. Oracle would be smart to position their distro as the best possible platform for their own primary products (such as the databases, ERP software and so on.) However, the chances of that are pretty slim.
Given Oracle just recently release a mammoth patch for their 9i and 11i products that, while containing more than 100 bug fixes, didn't manage to fix all known bugs, I seriously doubt they're in any way prepared to take on the responsibility of a full fledged Enterprise ready Operating System. This is going to kick them hard.
Re: (Score:2)
If they were writing a brand new operating system from scratch all by themselves, then you would have a point. However, they are not. They are instead doing the same thing that Red Ha
They tried something similar years back (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Installing Oracle on linux (Score:5, Insightful)
By assembling their own distro, they gain the ability to offer a complete virtualized environment - which is where the data centers are trending. This allows them to move from supporting *whatever*, into supporting a single environment.
Go look at the VMware Appliances [vmware.com] to get an idea of what I am talking about. The devices are complex, but the consistency is identical from VM to VM, regardless of hardware or underlying operating system.
Their support costs will plummet once they start moving their customers over to an "Oracle Appliance". Of course, this savings will be passed along to their shareholders.
Oracle certified on most linuxes.... (Score:2)
They certify that Oracle products will install trouble free on Red Hat and SUSE Linux Enterprise level distributions (Fedora and OpenSUSE not included) and all the installations I have done one these Linux distributions have indeed gone without a hitch. I have also tried to install Oracle on Fedora and it usually goes trouble free but not by any means always. If you really desperately don
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Back in the day, even proprietary software used to be semi-open source. You actually got the source to compile (almost no two computers were similar enough to be binary-compatible, which was why C was invented in the first place)
Re: (Score:2)
I think you have your history confused. Computers have been mass-produced in compatible lines since the 1950s: the IBM 650 and 701, the Univac I, the DEC PDP-1. Software has only been sold since the early 1960
Re:Installing Oracle on linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It's a trade-off. PostgreSQL has issues. (For example, I think SELECT COUNT(*) is still quite slow.) Oracle also has issues. Depending on your application, either Oracle or PostgreSQL might be more appropriate.
Also, PostgreSQL has only recently been comparable to a database like Oracle. IIRC, until a few years ago, you could only perform so many transactions before the transaction ID would wrap around, rendering the database unusual. Many people have been running Oracle for ages, and they see no nee
Re: (Score:2)
Bah. s/unusual/unusable/
Though I suppose "unusual" is true in a weird way.
Re: (Score:2)
For supported distributions, installing Oracle is as easy as installing Robin Hood.
If you just want to hack, then you're on your own of course.
Although I have never had problems with Debian (except for faking out the installer).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Redhat: "UnFakeable Linux" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Until Oracle actually issues an update that didn't come from Red Hat first Oracle will be 100% compatible. Once Oracle does that they will still have a window of opportunity to issue a second patch to bring Unbreakable Linux back in line with RHEL if RHEL updates suitably (from Oracles perspective).
Even if Oracle do that and become uncertified (with Red Hat) they are mostly
Re: (Score:2)
Poster must be pimping for osdir or something.
Screenshot Walkthrough (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Do these people even know what "Enterprise" mea (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm Unix administrator in Fortune 200 company so I guess I should know what Enterprise class is. Did you happen to see the list of other partners who joined the Unbreakable Linux program? Have a look [yahoo.com]. Hmm.. let's see. HP, IBM, EMC, BMC..etc.
Linux with EMC Symmetrix high end fibre channel storage support, Linux with HP Service Guard mission critical high availability cluster management software, Lin
Too expensive? I know why (Score:3, Funny)
Too expensive? I know why. Larry buys too big boats, too often. And, above all, he never invited me... (Now is your chance, Larry!)
They're building an applicance (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
At that point Red Hat can start using the patches that Oracle is forced to write.
Plan for Linux Domination (Score:2, Insightful)
2. Remove all vendor identity
3. Explain how your's is somehow "better"
4. Profit and repeat
Re:Plan for Linux Domination (Score:5, Insightful)
By the way, calling Unbreakable Linux a separate distro is not really accurate at this point. Trying to disparage it by calling it "just another Red Hat respin" is really missing the point. Ellison already said it's a Red Hat respin, that's the idea. The idea is to basically piggyback on the one name in Linux that has any real street cred among executives in large companies, that being Red Hat. Oracle is basically trying to take Red Hat's primary revenue stream away from them by offering better service for the same code at a better price. If they are successful, I would imagine the end game here would be for Oracle to either buy Red Hat on the cheap or, more likely, hire Red Hat's best talent away and let the company itself fade into oblivion.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> network is for someone else's product. Where's the Oracle
> Database Network and Applications Network
This is built into the current version of Oracle's management console... actually.
That managment console even has a nice utility to ensure
that all of your Linuxen are identically configured if
you are in a clustered environment. Oracle has been
pushing release managment controls into their product
for awhile now.
First Oracle Bug Fix (Score:3, Funny)
Who pays for this stuff? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not trying to troll here. I'm just thinking that for the cost of several Oracle installations and experienced Oracle DBAs you could get a much cheaper (or outright free) database and some really top notch talent.
Re:Who pays for this stuff? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Installing is a major pain. Cloning an entire Applications environment is an answer to this, but with Oracle's Rapid Clone it's still too manual. There are automated cloning
Re:Who pays for this stuff? (Score:4, Informative)
Take a look at this [techtarget.com] for an allegedly unbiased opinion (but who knows what is shilling and what is real these days?!).
J.
Oracle Prices Are Negotiable (Score:5, Informative)
BTW, all those numbers are from my rather fragile memory. YMMV.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
You May Moderate Vigorously?
Re: (Score:2)
At the moment for large complex db applications yes. I won't go through the complete list of features as oracle [oracle.com] are more than willing to telling you in great detail.
I run postgresql, mysql and oracle in production and there are heaps of things that postgres and mysql can't do that oracle can and I use on a daily basis.
As to whether they are worth the big $$ well that really depends on features, reliability and speed to production your db/applications needs. A simple web app, like slashdot, can ge
Re:Who pays for this stuff? (Score:5, Informative)
Remember that we are talking list price for one server.
I can speak from experience that Oracle's architecture is better than DB2, substantially better than SQL Server, and completely blows Sybase out of the water. Oracle 7 or 8 years ago was handling concurrency and large transactions better than Sybase does today. The CBO is much better than everyone's except maybe DB2. The hardware support is broader than just about everyone else with the exception of DB2. Locking is better handled. Indexes are efficient even on columns that aren't integers. VARCHAR support is clean. PL/SQL is quirky but less quirky than the alternatives. The trigger support is richer.
What generally happens is that a customer will go with Oracle for a handful of critical apps that justify the high price. Then once Oracle has their foot in the door, they'll come back and offer an expanded deal to host the databases that could run perfectly fine in any db, and do it all at a discount. The end cost is going to be substantially less than one would suppose by scaling up the quoted numbers.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyhow, $160k for a four cpu license does sound expensive. In db2-land that would probably be around $120 for the top-end product, but either oracle or db2 could als
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think so. PL/SQL has a much wider range of features, and the basic language is decent, but the way it integrates with SQL itself is pretty quirky. You have to keep track of what functions are PL/SQL functions and what are just SQL functions, sometimes doing a hokey "Select blah() From Dual Into MyVar", it's a pain in the ass to keep field names and variable names from colliding, and it's difficult to work with data in sets because temp tables
Re: (Score:2)
This is actually a pet peeve of mine with T-SQL, or more properly T-SQL developers. All too often I see T-SQL developers load up a temp table, then update it from an additional table, and then update it again, etc. I shake my head and ask myself "How did someone become a SQL developer without understanding how to use a join?"
Re: (Score:2)
Previously when we had duplicate patient entries in the system, a non-technical staff member had to run SQL queries to locate the offending records and then run about 10 separate SQL statements to merge each one by hand. It took me less than a week to write a PL/pgSQL
Re: (Score:2)
- to scare off the unsure, and
- to enable salesreps to give you rebate percentages in the double digits.
Re: (Score:2)
They have a large, comprehensive, worldwide support network.
If I buy into Postgres can you provide me a handy list that details when
the various global support centers for postgres go on and offline. I've
known some dbas to favor a particular support center in a particular
country and will time their support calls accordingly.
If you submit a highest level support incident to Oracle, they will
expect you and your boss to be at their disposal 24/7 while the
problem is being worked. Is that the case for postgres
Re: (Score:2)
This idea that Microsoft is going to necessarily be "cheap" is a fallacy.
They might be cheap-ER in some situations. They also might not be. The
margin also might not be worth the other tradeoffs (like being forced to
run small DOS boxes).
This will help others adopt Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a wrong perception that large companies don't adopt Linux because they prefer commercial offerings. This is only half right. It's not that they like commercial software per se, or that they don't know or understand the benefits of open-source software. The real issue for the lack of adoption is the perceived legal exposures of running software and becoming liable for it (SCO, anyone?). These large companies would be happy to bring Linux in-house as long as a larger company offers some kind of indemnification clause in their contracts.
Many large companies offer Linux distributions and absorb the indemnification. It's no wonder then that superior distributions like Ubuntu aren't on the enterprise shopping list: there is little or no viable indemnification offered. Red Hat is a big fish among open-source vendors but not large enough to convince many large enterprises to take the plunge. That's why IBM has made a good play in this arena: their Linux offerings are rather crappy, but they offer the magic word: INDEMNIFICATION. This has opened many doors for them that remained shut to other vendors.
An Oracle offering brings the same "large company support" that will let the pussies in legal departments and the dumbass middle managers sleep well at night. Oracle is already known to work well with Linux; couple that that with Red Hat functionality and Oracle support (especially if other Oracle products are involved) and that makes a very attractive proposition for all the parties involved. If Oracle plays this right they can start by offering Red Hat dressed in Oracle garb as they came out of the gate, and then provide a migration path toward Ubuntu or another Linux distribution with better tools.
Oracle didn't get that big by being idiots. They are smart and they are aggressive. I think that this is overall a good thing. It creates more competition for IBM, who perhaps now will actually push for real Linux offerings that work, for Novell with SuSe, for Sun and Solaris, and it opens the door for upstarts like Canonical who are well-positioned to make Ubuntu a household name. Last, it will open doors to Linux that would otherwise remain shut. Oracle Linux marks the maturity phase of the first round of consolidation and is the harbinger of the next distribution wars. The next five years will be very interesting.
Cheers,
Eugene Ciurana
Re: (Score:2)
OT, but I always wondered why such people get called "pussies".
Perhaps they're soft, warm, moist and surrounded by hair. Or they're soft, warm, hairy and go "Meow".
5000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think people ever bought software while thinking about the possibility of getting sued over third party IP claims, not because of some indemnificatio
Not a convincing argument to me (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, there ARE sonme segments of the market that is still enamoured with all things Microsoft. Yes, when compared to many alternatives Microsoft is garbage but that doesn't matter. Microsoft solutions are typically like McDonalds food...fast and easy, and when you are hungry and don't have much extra cash it tastes good. Also like McDonalds food, if you only have Microsoft y
Dunno about anyone else... (Score:2, Informative)
What about old Cygnus? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, can anyone in the know comment on how much of Red Hat's business is Linux, as compared to what used to be Cygnus?
Recant. (Score:4, Informative)
Yesterday I suggested [slashdot.org] Oracle entering the game would be good for the market by increasing competion among Linux vendors. Looking at this offering, I have to say: what a joke. I was completely wrong.
Oracle are pulling nothing more than a publicity stunt with this. I expect I would be correct in the speculation that some marketing executive asked some developers to slap together an “Oracle branded distribution”. They then took a release of Fedora Core and changed graphics and colors. Boom! Instant industry player.
Re: (Score:2)
They are proving that RedHat has no fundamental value in that they are selling freely available open source software. As we know, Centos is just as good as RedHat except for the support (which is provided by Google just as well as Redhat IMHO). Non-geeks though don't seem to know about Centos. They will (and have judging by Redhats stock tumble) understand about Oracle.
Oracle can take Redhat's business by resell
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Always have to start from scratch. (Score:2)
They are not adding any value, which brings me back to a point I drilled in my previous post. That is all that matters to the market. Just rebranding it and offering essentially the same product does not accomplish this. If they did not want to innovate or offer anything fundamentally superior to RedHat, it would have been better for all parties involved (the two companies and their customers) if they created a partnership. I think it is not hard to see the benefits of that. Instead of a single outstan
Re: (Score:2)
Support (either better quality, better price for quality, or otherwise) is added value.
Support is a product. Indeed, with commercialized Linux, support is essentially the product.
Not necessarily. (Score:2)
Read the article for a good reason why their support will have no essential benefit over RedHat support.
As usual with Oracle... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Our biggest competitors are our customers (Score:2, Interesting)
Companies don't NEED Red Hat support. All the documentation they need is freely available. They could provide all their own Linux support. The reason companies buy support from Red Hat is because it is cheaper and more reliable than doing it in-house.
Companies do need to buy support from Oracle because it is closed source. On the other hand, the open source databases are getting better. Oracle ha
Re: (Score:2)
I wish that were true. My experience has been that our in-house support is much better than what we get from Red Hat. We wanted a box to house our source code repository and run Apache and Linux box made more sense. However, our parent company will not allow any software in-house that doesn't come with a support contract, so we had to go with Red Hat. The majority of the issues we've had with t
Re: (Score:2)
It's like letting developers muck around with an app after it's gone into production.
Open Oracle Linux .. (Score:2)
3 No's for Oracle (Score:2)
2) If I use a database on Linux it is MySQL. I use Oracle on Solaris exclusively. I know it is a technical fallacy but I have to say it, "they go together".
3) If companies have to tweak the OS for their software to run then I tend to shy away from the software.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I guess you don't know how many Linux developers Oracle has in it's employment? Oracle has a lot of OSS software available. They also have numerous kernel developers employed.
OSS Corporate Benchmarks (Score:2)
We in the OSS community should benchmark Oracle's entry into the biz by measuring their contribution of code against how much money they earn on their distro. Their late entry is welcome, but does start "standing on the shoulders of giants", including RedHat's. The real contribution of a corporation getting all that "free" software to turn into a business is measured in their
Re: (Score:2)
How is asking a legitimate question which you answered, precisely in context of the story and my point about Oracle, in any way a "troll"?
Re: (Score:2)
A question you didn't answer. I know how RedHat works. Since you work there, maybe you know how many LoC or some other benchmark we can use in this comparison.
Otherwise it's just going to be a pissing contest among holywarriors, a
Another article: "Oracle Support," an Oxymoron" (Score:2)
http://www.linspire.com/linspire_letter.php [linspire.com]
ah damn ! (Score:2)
Let's examine other Oracle attempts at open source (Score:2)
But how about the Oracle application server? A truly horrendous piece of shit that makes most SAP installations look like pure genius. One of the big "selling points" of their App server was that it used "the open source Apache web server". Oh joy.
This was great
Re: (Score:2)
Red Hat derives its business from code that was 99% written by people who do not work for it and never did. If it wasn't for the work many hundreds (thousands) or people put in for nothing they wouldn't exist. Did they really think they'd be the top dog in the linux food chain and no one would ever use *their* work for financial gain in turn? Too bad if they did because now
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree with the assertations about Oracle Application Server - part of my job is administering it, and it's a shocking piece of junk a
Oracle may be losing relevance (Score:4, Interesting)
For me, Oracle is a non-starter. It's big, expensive, and reportedly has a high management overhead. So why would I bother?
So far, I've seen massive growth easily and handily supported by PostgreSQL [postresql.org]. It's been rock-solid, very stable, secure, and installation consisted of typing two commands:
yum install postgresql-server;
service postgresql start;
We're experimenting with Slony PG clustering, with the intention of rolling that out over Christmas break. (when nobody's looking) Currently, we're snapshotting and mirroring databases hourly, but we want real-time failover...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
you often wouldn't for a start-up - assuming modest data volumes postgresql is a great choice
But let's say that you've got a 200 gbyte table, and your query is doing table scans because the selection criteria identifies more than 5% of the data in the table. Ok, on db2 or oracle with partitioning, parallelism and very good query optimization that might take you, say, 2-5 seconds o
CentOS? (Score:2)
Oh Big Larr, so excited about linux but no way to harness it. Thank got they didn't buy Novell.
-m