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Should Dual Cores Require Dual Licenses?
sebFlyte writes "The multi-core debate continues. HP and Intel have laid into Oracle and (to a lesser extent) BEA over their their treatment of multi-core processers. Oracle's argument that 'a core is a CPU and therefore you should pay us all your money' isn't a popular one, it would seem. What does Oracle's stubbornness imply for the industry as a whole, with multicore chips coming to the fore so strongly?"
I'm not paying for any "processers"!
Oracle's stubborness says, time to start looking at DB2.
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
I thought that they just turned you upside down and saw how much money fell out of your pockets.
HP and Intel should manage their own business, and leave Oracle to mismanage theirs.
What have we come to that companies write open letters to themselves, using public opinion to try to damage competitors or enhance their own position... and the public eats it up and supports it?
Intel, this is your problem. Deal with it without whining to the public... or you'll look like whiners. It isn't like the wining is going to actually help your case anyway.
> What does Oracle's stubbornness imply for the
> industry as a whole, with multicore chips coming
> to the fore so strongly?"
PostgreSQL is coming along nicely...
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
This is sort of scam is used on pricing for mainframes all the time. One place where I worked used this as an excuse to (finally!) dump some crappy and archaic Computer Associates products when they started charging us double for a dual processor, even though one processor was partitioned to another OS that didn't run any of their products.
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
I've always found Oracle's licensing to be pretty wrong-headed at every turn. You can sense that they really don't feel they need to compete on price, which is usually the ultimate undoing of an overly arrogant company.
My sense of things, though, is that to move from one database technology to another is a massive undertaking. You fight with these tools so much that you become an expert with them... warts and all... and even if someone else has a better and cheaper mouse-trap, mission-critical stuff just refuses to budge off the old workhorse.
The dual-core problem is just a new flavor of the Oracle licensing problem. It will be interesting to see if they budge.
David Whatley
Oracle's stubborness says, time to start looking at DB2.
Absolutely. But how many can easily switch?
For a long time I have had (occasionally heated) arguments with SQL addicts who insist that almost everything about an application should be coded in SQL and stored procedures. Meanwhile I have been moving all my logic away from the database engine, using APIs such as Java Data Objects, which makes my code very rapidly portable between databases. Now I am in a position to switch my code (and data) easily between different database vendors if there is a licensing or price issue.
I strongly believe we should start to think of databases simply as engines for storing and retrieving inter-related objects and not as platforms for writing applications.
Wait until Cell processors become the norm... when you have a process that runs around your network looking for resources to run on.... Oracle's sales reps are going to have a field day with that one!
Due to greed and stagnancy, Oracle has maybe 5 years left before the "smell of rot" is all pervasive. When MySQL and PostgreSQL become so common place (think Apache on the net today vs. Netscape's web server from the mid to late '90s), Oracle will be lucky to be a million dollar company.
If you doubt my words, think of what MySQL and PostgreSQL were just a year ago. Then think "What will they be like with 5 more YEARS of development?". Then realize that they are free to everyone and you'll see why Oracle is doomed.
Of course, Microsoft will claim it as their victory, but you, me and everyone else not running SQL Server will know better.
"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic." Cicero
On one hand, a person with a dual core chip is likely to get slightly better performance than 2 actual chips.
...And a person with a 2GHz processor will get better performance
than a 1GHz processor (with the the same processor core, of course),
so why not charge based on clock rate?
But then, a person with a bigger L1 cache will also get better performance, so why not charge based on transistor count?
Why not just charge based on MFLOPS or MIPS? Why not charge based on actual transaction throughput?
This amounts to nothing more than a quick-and-easy way to try to sneak through a regular doubling of their pricing structure. Realistically, we can expect Moore's law to start applying to number of cores, rather than number of transistors. So, in 20 years, will Larry expect their customers to pay more than the GDP of most smaller industrialized nations? In 30 years, will he let us use Oracle if we just make him "Emperor Ellison I, monarch of Earth and the Lunar Colonies"?
No. In a few years, Oracle will simply reverse this policy, and go back to their current approach of striking the corporate rock with a big stick until it runs out of blood. That, or they will cease to exist. In the meantime... Anyone currently dependant on Oracle would do well to start migrating now, because, of the three possible outcomes (no change; no per-core pricing; going under), two mean you'll need to change eventually, and the remaining option means you'll at least get raped over the short-term.
There's a way you can be a real ass about that situation, whilst running all 4 of your CPUs.
;)
First, it can be easier if you were running Linux, but the way it sounds, youre running solaris, right?
Well, if you do happen to be running Linux on this, just nab the 2.6 kernel, and make a Usermode Kernel. Run Oracle under the UML kernel, where it cant touch any hardware at all, without going through an abstraction layer. What it doesnt know wont hurt it. Even better yet, you could run this "Kernel Job" on proc #3 and give it sole prio over that CPU (in other words, run only that process- the UML process).
Since, you're probably running Solaris, I believe there's 2 possibilities.. For one, VMware I believe can run on that architechure. Just do with VMware what you can do with UML Kernel. Run it on last CPU like UML. Sits there happy as a clam at high tide.
The last possibility is what Im not completely not sure of. I believe the new solaris had UML-like capability and to partition hardware resources to seperate "Computers". Since Im not quite sure, I'll have have you go look at Sun's website about possibly looking down that path of execution (heh I made a funny).
Nevertheless, if there's a method of little overhead that partitions hardware resources, it's something you ought to look into.
Just an idea