Linux Helping Oracle

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Posted by ryuzaki0 on Sunday April 9, 2006 @04:17AM from the more-the-merrier dept.

Mr. Fahrenheit writes "CNN has a story about how Oracle's effort to port their database to Linux may be helping them to out pace IBM." From the article: "In its biennial survey of the world's largest databases, WinterCorp, a database research and consulting company, reported that Oracle dominated its list of 175 large databases. For the first time, databases running on Linux appeared on WinterCorp's list -- and all of them came from Oracle."

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Enlightened Self-Interest by ThatGeek · 2006-04-09 04:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

This story demonstrates enlightened self-interest, not kindness. While us folks using Linux will get a better operating system as a result, the Oracle corp will get an OS which can run its software well.

I just wish the people at ATI and NVIDIA would start to understand that giving technical details to open source developers doesn't always have to hurt. Technology is not a zero sum game; it's like science in which there are benefits to working together.

--
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
1. Re:Enlightened Self-Interest by ScrewMaster · 2006-04-09 04:30 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  And you know what? I'll take enlightened self-interest over kindness any day. At least, then I know where I stand. But if someone is being kind to you for no apparent reason, you really have to wonder about their actual agenda.
  
  --
  The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
2. Re:Enlightened Self-Interest by ScrewMaster · 2006-04-09 05:28 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Read what I said again.
  
  The term "enlightened self-interest" has nothing to do with screwing the other guy ... in fact, it very much has to do with deliberately not jacking the other guy around. That's what the term "enlightened" means in this context. I ran a consulting company for about fifteen years, and yes, I was out to make a profit. After all, that's why I was in business. But I fully expected the other guy to come away from the table with some benefit as well, which is what any good business relationship is all about. If your only goal is to get whatever you can, by any means, no matter what the cost to your business partners or your customers, well, that's self-interest without the enlightened part.
  
  Furthermore, when people would come to me with "opportunities" that seemed to good to be true (i.e., being "kind" for no apparent reason) I was naturally very suspicious. I would always ask, gee that sounds great ... but what do you get out of it? If the answer was nothing I knew they were lying, and that I would end up getting the shaft. But if someone came to me and said, "I have a mutually profitable business arrangement I would like to discuss with you" I would at least listen, because they were being honest about their expectations.
  
  --
  The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
3. Re:Enlightened Self-Interest by lawpoop · 2006-04-09 10:21 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You are right. With enlightened self-interest, both parties are capable of positioning themselves to benefit. With kindness, it can be taken away at a moments' notice.
  
  --
  Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
  -- Pablo Picasso
MS Access by Sartak · 2006-04-09 04:32 · Score: 5, Funny

I'm still awaiting an Access port. Then we'll have a truly fantastic Linux database. Til then, I'll stick with my trusty flatfiles.
1. Re:MS Access by caudron · 2006-04-09 06:13 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I'm still awaiting an Access port
  
  You wanna read MS Access files in linux? Done: http://mdbtools.sourceforge.net/
  
  You wanna port that data to an F/OSS db? Done: http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/gagn e_access.html
  
  You want an MS Access equivolent for linux? Done: http://software.newsforge.com/software/04/04/20/18 23249.shtml?tid=150&tid=72&tid=82
  
  Yeah, it was a joke, I know, but beleive it or not, there are those for whom MS Access is a working requirement who might be interested in these links.
  
  Tom Caudron
  http://tom.digitalelite.com/programming.html
  
  --
  -Tom
2. Re:MS Access by moreati · 2006-04-09 06:13 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I'm sure you mean this in jest. However, the folks at mdbtools are working on it.
  
  Alex
Bollocks by teslatug · 2006-04-09 04:35 · Score: 5, Interesting

The assertion that Linux is helping Oracle gain grounds on IBM isn't supported at all in the article. DB2 also runs under Linux, and if they said that Oracle on Linux is faster than DB2 on Linux then I could understand it. But just because Oracle runs under Linux, doesn't mean existing DB2 customers will jump ship to Oracle. Also new customers in the market for a database will not go to Oracle just because it runs under Linux because so does DB2. They'll compare the merits of the databases, and the costs that go with them.
1. Re:Bollocks by Khuffie · 2006-04-09 04:50 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yes, but new customers who already have a Linux environment running previously had one choice: DB2. Now Oracle has a chance of making sales from these customers
Oracle Installer Sucks by dretay · 2006-04-09 04:50 · Score: 4, Informative

I have recently had a lot of experience trying to install Oracle 9i on linux. The installer is broken in multiple places, and the only way to get it to install is to buy an Oracle support contract (there are specific "coyprighted" scripts that can not be found on the web). Even after you buy the contract, you have to go through several permutations of apply this patch, run this script... to get it to work. Once working the database becomes a resource hog, and seems to break quite often when I am applying system updates. Trying to move database tables from one server to another is also a major pain in the ass (although it could just be that MySQL is very easy) I can not think of anything short of a gun to the head that could convince me to try installing oracle on linux again.
1. Re:Oracle Installer Sucks by dknj · 2006-04-09 05:11 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  wow, first of all this is a truely misconceived post. second, shame on the moderators that are artificially increasing the validity of this.
  
  first of all, any worthwhile company running oracle WILL have a support contract. period. second, the installer (which i agree blows chunks) is not broken to the point where you REQUIRE a support contract. i speak from experience here, because i have had no problem installing oracle 9i on linux (without calling oracle support). third, oracle is a resource hog because of its design. you don't use oracle for a 10 record database, go use MySQL and worry about your tables getting corrupted for that. now when you're talking million records or more, then oracle will "hog your resources" to ensure you get lightening quick responses while ensuring data integrity. finally, moving databases from one server to another is hardly a pain, if you are a competent system administrator (or even if you're not.. if you have a competent technical lead). again, i'm speaking from experience.
  
  and if you still hate oracle because it is a commerical product (i say this only because you sound biased towards mysql), then jump ship to postgresql. besides the fact that its autovacuum package also sucks ass, it is the only competitor to oracle that i would trust in a production environment.
2. Re:Oracle Installer Sucks by jadavis · 2006-04-09 14:12 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  There are a few issues here.
  
  First, do you want the statistics because PostgreSQL is choosing a bad plan without them, or do you use the statistics directly?
  
  I'm having a little trouble understanding exactly what you want. It sounds like maybe you want something other than an elapsed time to trigger autovacuum on that one temp table so that the statistics are updated. But really, if there is any time lapse at all it seems like your application could not rely on the numbers without doing an explicit "ANALYZE" or "VACUUM ANALYZE".
  
  Perhaps what you're looking for is up-to-date statistics of some kind. This has been discussed at length on the pgsql-hackers mailing list, primarily regarding the "count(*)" aggregate function. To do it in a transactionally up-to-date way requires triggers. If you want it to be automatic, certainly triggers are not for you since it's easier to do an "ANALYZE" than create a trigger. It could also be done with extensive locking.
  
  The main problem is that the behavior you want can't be the default because it would cause performance problems for other applications. And you also say you don't want to do it explicitly.
  
  Can you describe what you're trying to accomplish? Perhaps there is another way.
  
  --
  Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Good news but not well interpreted by openfrog · 2006-04-09 04:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

It is welcomed news that Linux and open source foster a productive cooperation in the high-end database market. The interpretation given in this article gets it just backward, wrongly positioning Linux and IBM in opposite camps (facts given in the article don't support the interpretation offered). Who the # wrote this article?
Or... by buddha42 · 2006-04-09 04:58 · Score: 2, Interesting

You could just as easily say the opposite, Oracle is helping linux.
RMS Access by boomgopher · 2006-04-09 05:05 · Score: 2, Funny

I'm still awaiting an Windows port of Richard M. Stallman. Then we'll have a truly fanatic ex-Linux pundit. Til then, I'll stick with my trusty gefilte fish.

*yawn* sorry, tried my best, still too sleepy..

--
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Our experience with Postgresql by Anonymous Coward · 2006-04-09 05:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

Oracle has good reputation for working with large size dbs. It's not cheap though, at ~$50K/CPU.

We put about 210 million records in Postgresql database for one of our apps and so far Postgresql has shown itself really well. Queries are quick, database is stable, backup times are reasonable... personally, Postgresql has exceeded my expectations.

It's good that Oracle runs on Linux, as Postgresql has done for many years, but at what point do you really need to spend all that money on Oracle? I think Postgresql will be more than sufficient for 95+% of all apps out there.
1. Re:Our experience with Postgresql by briansmith · 2006-04-09 07:05 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  It's good that Oracle runs on Linux, as Postgresql has done for many years, but at what point do you really need to spend all that money on Oracle? I think Postgresql will be more than sufficient for 95+% of all apps out there.
  
  I agree, but I would like to point out that Oracle doesn't usually cost $50K/CPU for any system that would be sufficient for PostgreSQL. It is more fair to compare Oracle Standard Edition or Oracle SE One to PostgreSQL, which are priced significantly lower ($15K and $5K respectively, plus support). Even EE is "only" $40K/CPU, plus support.
OracLinux by Doc+Ruby · 2006-04-09 06:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

What's cool about porting Oracle to Linux is that Oracle can modify Linux. They can drop parts of the kernel that don't help Oracle run, and add parts Oracle needs but that isn't part of Oracle. I'd love to see an Oracle Linux distro that is stripped to do nothing but run an Oracle server (not even run Oracle clients) and maybe one of Oracle's Java app servers, in clusters.

--
--
make install -not war
As someone who makes these decisions ... by Chitlenz · 2006-04-09 06:34 · Score: 4, Informative

I'd say they're right, but also this article is a tad late to the party. This has been going on for at LEAST 5 years, since 8.0 was first released for, I believe, Redhat 7. Consequently, this is not some huge rush for Redhat, and I actually have found tighter distros to run 10g better (I like gentoo, but it's a pain in the ass to get tuned right for this particular task). Anyway, what I found interesting is that our linux oracle systems absolutely STOMPED the 8 way v880/16GB Solaris boxes in archive testing involving 4+TB databases (this to us was a real shock btw... I'm currently buying v40z class servers from Sun that are 4x dual core opteron boxes for like a 10th of the price of a true solaris (Sparc) platform. Thus I would say IBM's problem is Sun's problem in this case as far as selling big iron anymore).

I think Oracle is winning because Oracle is honest to god better than their competition. I was (am?) a DBA for 10 years on Sybase (AIX), SQL Server 6x 7x 2kx, Informix 8x 9x, and Oracle 8x 9x 10x at various times, and though I've moved on to a database architecture role with the company I'm with, I'm still making the call on systems purchases. We use mostly SQL Server 2005, for cost, in the smaller 4-6TB systems and they run great, but I wouldn't even consider DB2 for any production role anymore with Oracle out there making it happen in so many better ways.

I'm not a fanboy of Ellison, I'm just realistic about who's driving the market today.

--chitlenz

PS - Oh yeah, as mentioned we're running Sun 40z's with Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005 on Netapp arrays AND it is VERY MUCH worth noting that the lower end Sun/Opteron line not only runs windows, but runs windows VERY well (driver support for their servers is very very good, which was like ... well weird... 'Sun support? Can I get a download link to your windows drivers?'). Try it and be shocked ....just a tip.

--chitlenz

PPS - for anyone who is curious about this topic in any real way, use an isntall guide other than Oracle's, since it's usually wrong for awhile ... use something like http://www.puschitz.com/InstallingOracle10g.shtml
instead.

--
Imagination is the silver lining of Intelligence.