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Blog: Software Oracle Unbreakable Linux vs. Red Hat
Michael Hoffman (Blog) - November 26, 2007 8:40 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 12 comment(s) - last by GeorgeOrwell.. on Nov 27 at 8:15 PM
Can Oracle dominate Red Hat?

The Oracle OpenWorld expo in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago featured a slew of different announcements, but only a small number of them got major press coverage.  One curious reader e-mailed me to quickly discuss Oracle Unbreakable Linux and Red Hat, and I decided a short blog was in order.

Led by CEO Larry Ellison, Oracle officially set its sights on stealing market share away from Red Hat, the current leader in enterprise Linux.  As the Oracle Unbreakable Linux support program -- based off of Red Hat technology -- continues to snap up users after more than a year on the market, Ellison still chose not to publicly speculate how the OS is doing compared to Red Hat.  The company jumped fully into the Linux support business due to the number of clients who elect to use free and open software technologies.  

"Oracle has been in the Linux business for a year now. With the Red Hat code all we did for the first year was fix bugs," Ellison said in his keynote.  "Now Oracle is growing a lot faster than Red Hat. Red Hat has been growing too because it is a growing market."

Oracle is probably known in the open source community for its code contribution of the Oracle Cluster File System, which is optimized for Oracle databases but included with the 2.6.16 Linux kernel.  According to Oracle, Red Hat users interested in switching from RH to Unbreakable Linux should be able to do so in a few minutes.    

More than 1,500 customers tried Unbreakable Linux, especially during a three-month free trial window.  More impressive is Oracle's claim it had less than 30 supporters a mere six months ago.
"The phenomenal adoption of the Oracle Unbreakable Linux support program has exceeded expectations and clearly demonstrates that Linux users seek better quality support -- the same support Oracle offers its database customers," said Edward Screven, Oracle Chief Corporate Architect.

Oracle believes its announcement of the Xen-based Oracle VM virtualization software will create an advantage over Red Hat, even though Red Hat uses the same Xen software in its Linux distributions.  It wouldn't be surprising to see if virtualization software is one of the keys to determine who will hold enterprise Linux superiority next year.   

A key difference between Red Hat and Oracle is the software stack that caters to users:  "We have a single stack of code that includes Oracle VM and Linux. This is a very high quality, optimized VM. This is not the same code as what Red Hat delivers," Ellison said during the event.  Not surprisingly, developers made sure Unbreakable Linux has been fully optimized for Oracle programs.

Red Hat had a presence at OpenWorld with a medium-sized booth demonstrating Red Hat Enterprise Linux, MetaMatrix, and other enterprise solutions.  Not surprisingly, representatives at the booth declined to speak about the impact of Unbreakable Linux possibly taking RH market share.  Although Red Hat remains the leader in the enterprise Linux market, and still has tens of thousands of supporters, the lackluster support Red Hat offers could help drive Unbreakable adoption among IT clients.

Ellison and other critics may not respect Red Hat's current support system; though it is apparent some corporate users still remain content paying for subscription support from Red Hat.  I spoke with representatives from a couple of different companies who expressed major concern over support from Red Hat, forcing them to think about alternative operating systems to run.    

Companies may sit on the sidelines a bit further before jumping on the Oracle bandwagon -- until we learn, without the Oracle hype, how good the company's customer support truly is.  As customer attitude changes from commercial support to open source, Red Hat and Oracle preparing for a fierce battle is understandable.

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Problem
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 11/26/2007 9:08:30 AM , Rating: 2
I think one of the biggest problems here is that Oracle's support is no better than most other companies. Linux is still a small project deal. Any large projects involving Oracle databases I see are done on Solaris still. Small scale the difference in overall performance from a Windows Server 2k3 box and a Red Hat box is similar. For something small enough to work on a Linux server though its easier to go with SQL Server on Windows.

Oracle's claim to fame is it's scalability. You can scale up massive Oracle database servers and they can still run very fast (Depending on if your DBA/Developers/Architects are worth their salt of course). On those large projects I've seen Solaris held up as the defacto standard. I'm not sure what market Oracle is looking to roll with, perhaps the medium sized server market, but Microsoft is doing it's best to make head way there as well.




RE: Problem
By iFX on 11/26/2007 9:57:54 AM , Rating: 1
It's just a different market. You are correct about the scalability. Most enterprises that have the cash to go with Oracle (any product) would have never even considered Red Hat to begin with.


RE: Problem
By lukasbradley on 11/26/2007 10:48:11 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Any large projects involving Oracle databases I see are done on Solaris still.


I think you need to define large in your statement. How much data? How many transactions?

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm just not sure I agree.


RE: Problem
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 11/26/2007 11:24:35 AM , Rating: 3
Petabytes of data, millions of transactions daily. See "CIA, NSA, DoD"


RE: Problem
By masher2 (blog) on 11/26/2007 2:27:40 PM , Rating: 3
While its true that the largest Oracle databases are not running under Linux, I don't believe any are in the Petabyte range, not in a single datase. The largest database I know of is AT&T's Daytona, which holds about a third of a petabyte. (and doesn't use Oracle).


RE: Problem
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 11/27/2007 8:58:57 AM , Rating: 2
You'll have to take my word for it, but Petabyte is starting to look small with some of the projects coming down the pipe. I've personally worked on 3 database systems in the last 5 years that have exceeded several Petabytes in size. All were done in Oracle. The DoD has this desire to basically "soak up the whole internet" and store it in some massive ass database. Nobody's figured out how to do that but it's not for lack of effort, NSA has been trying for upwards of 15 years now.


RE: Problem
By iFX on 11/26/2007 4:01:51 PM , Rating: 1
You don't even have to go that high level. I know of financial institutions running that kind of data daily. Think about items processing for the financial industry.


RE: Problem
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 11/27/2007 9:00:51 AM , Rating: 2
Touche. Financial sector, banks, lenders, etc... yea this is day to day business for them. Granted its across serveral different database systems usually, its still a massive amount of traffic.


RE: Problem
By cochy on 11/26/2007 12:43:08 PM , Rating: 2
Solaris is an excellent OS. It's UNIX like Linux and BSD. They are all very closely related and can run applications at about the same performance. What makes a difference is how the application was developed and optimized.

quote:
For something small enough to work on a Linux server though its easier to go with SQL Server on Windows.


Personally I'd sooner go with a free MySQL server for something "small". MySQL scales very well for small to medium applications. Run it on Linux, BSD or Solaris (or Windows if you happen to have spare licenses).


Oracle Linux adds to the Oracle lock-in
By GeorgeOrwell on 11/26/2007 2:47:32 PM , Rating: 3
Oracle will offer Oracle Linux for those customers who want to run Linux. Because over time Oracle's databases will only run "really well" on Oracle Linux and have "special features" only available on Oracle Linux, Oracles will be better able to increase customer lock-in.

Same old story, Linux edition.




By Master Kenobi (blog) on 11/27/2007 8:56:34 AM , Rating: 2
Yea. If anyone thinks Microsoft likes to lock you in, they've never dealt with Oracle. We won't even get in to licensing. Oracle has THE weirdest criteria that takes a rocket scientist to compute just how much it costs for an Oracle server in any specific setting/use.


By GeorgeOrwell on 11/27/2007 8:15:41 PM , Rating: 3
Ah, yes, it is something special when Oracle brings in their equivalent of a "special master", the rocket scientist bean counter, to compute your license fees. No doubt they are time travelers from the past, formerly imperial tax collectors of a Chinese emperor. The sublime art form of "measuring the stick" and "sharpening the stick" is something only an Oracle licensee can truly appreciate.

Though I wonder if Oracle, like Microsoft, parks a couple guys in front of the appropriate VP's house and tells them what a nice family they have.

Of course Oracle does offer a nice shiny pair of handcuffs with the word "Unbreakable" laser etched into them. You get a free pair with each Oracle license (which is also watermarked with the word "Unbreakable").

Sigh. If only Oracle told you it was the license, not the database, that is "unbreakable".


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