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Oracle's Take On Red Hat Linux
darthcamaro writes "For nearly three years, Oracle has had its own version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, claiming the two versions are essentially the same thing. But are they really? As it turns out, there are a few things on which Oracle and Red Hat do not see eye-to-eye, including file systems and virtualization. The article quotes Wim Coekaerts, Oracle's director of Linux engineering, saying, 'A lot of people think Oracle is doing Enterprise Linux as just basically a rip off of Red Hat but that's not what this is about. ... This is about a support program, and wanting to offer quality Linux OS support to customers that need it. The Linux distribution part is there just to make sure people can get a freely available Linux operating system that is fully supported.'"
One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison...
Um, so basically it is a rip off of Red Hat just with Red Hat stripped out and Oracle's own filesystem added to the kernel
No no no no no.
The default filesystem shipped with RHEL and OUL is ext3. The clustered file-system shipped with RHEL is GFS, and with OUL it is OCFS2. OCFS2 is not compiled in-kernel within Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and must be mod-probed in as a separate - unsupported by Red Hat - module.
> with a different VM.
Again, wrong. RHEL 5 ships with Xen, and will support Xen until at least 2014. OUL also ships with Xen. Please remember, KVM has not shipped in *any* RHEL release (major or minor) yet. Only Red Hat internally knows the release agenda.
> Thats it. Still maintains binary compatibility, > etc.
Oracle's binary compatibility claims are a myth.
This has nothing to do with who makes the product. It is entirely a support issue. Lets say you have a problem with your Oracle solution on Solaris or RedHat Linux. Oracle will look at the problem and determine it is an OS problem and so you go to Sun or RedHat and they say this is after all not an OS problem, but a virtualization problem so you go to third provider, who will find out that finally fixes the problem two day and several millions in lost profit later.
If you can have one provider who will offer support for the entire stack, OS, virtualization, database or middleware engine, you have a huge win on your hands. Premium contracts can have time limits which now don't cover just one layer, but the entire stack. The same company will resolve the problem no matter where it lies and they are responsible by the service contract to resolve the problem. Where the problem actually lies is an internal issue you don't need to care about.
When you add to it that business talks are done with single company, which results in time savings and you usually save by bundling the service contracts into one package as well. this is almost a no brainer that customer actually demand this.
Add to it that RedHat is not binary free product, that you actually have to pay for the binary distribution of enterprise version, and that Oracle will basically save you additional money by compiling RedHat linux from sources for you.
Redhat has a huge edge for servers not using Oracle database or middleware, but for servers actually running Oracle products, it is no brainer to go with a full stack support contract.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
This is basically like someone trying to justify that Linux Mint is some grand new distribution when it is nothing more then Ubuntu with a few extra tweaks and drivers added.
Which, in itself, is a lot like someone trying to imply that Ubuntu is a distribution when it's nothing more than a snapshot of Debian sid with a few extra tweaks and drivers added.
I would not take the plunge. Just grep the kernel source, how many times does the word oracle come up compared to redhat? Redhat and the people they employ have been responsible for a tone of linux development - it is their core business. Oracle have comparatively done bugger all. Redhat employ _real_ kernel developers. Do oracle? So when your server crashes in the middle of the night, who do you think will be able to produce a kernel patch to fix the problem, the people who employ kernel developers and have done so for years. Or.... a company that three years ago decided to rip off somebody elses distro... I would not touch oracle with a barge pole. (disclaimer: but all that is only opinion)
The greatest challenge that Red Hat (and Oracle) now face is to determine what they're actually selling and make a clear case for the added value that they provide.
I've run a few large Linux shops, recently including one requiring over 300 RHEL licenses and I can tell you that without a doubt that both Red Hat and Oracle sales people have zero idea what they are selling, what the differences may be and what added value they provide.
Red Hat copyrighted materials are the Red Hat trademark, logo, etc and the key difference between all of the RHEL derivates is simply the absence of that name and logo. Each distribution can pick and chose what patches and changes they want to merge in but everything is open source. It's how CentOS, Oracle, etc can make a competing "product." It's a bundle of freely available code and not much more. Where products differentiate is their delivery mechanisms and support of said code.
Things get complicated when you start asking Oracle and Red Hat what you're actually buying and what that support entails you to. I can tell you from first hand experience that I have never had a single issue get resolved via Red Hat's support organization - including clear bugs with tickets that still exist (primarily memory management code with kswapd.) Maybe they're only setup to help people get printers working with cups? And the same goes with Oracle Support.
By Oracle's move of choosing what code to merge and adopt they are misleading customers by openly calling it and comparing it to RHEL - which is exactly how it's sold and pitched to customers.
Oracle even offers a utility to run on your RHEL installation to re-brand it to Oracle Enterprise Linux. It replaces a bunch of packages and removes the Red Hat name, points it at the Oracle yum sources and calls it a day.
If Oracle wants to create a world class Linux they need to provide the tools, support and honesty to make it a successful competitor rather than relying on their name (which does not hold much clout, despite what their marketing guru's may think.) Combine that with resolution of real problems and not just entry-level technical support and you'll have a winner.
Come to think of it, that applies to Red hat as well.