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Oracle Kills Virtual Iron
rhathar writes in with news that Oracle is killing off the products of Virtual Iron, a month after purchasing the company. Reports say that all but 10 to 15 staff were let go. The Reg article speculates that Oracle bought VI for its technology and considers its customers and partners expendable. When the Sun purchase finalizes, Oracle will be in possession of three separate virtualization technologies all based on Xen. "In a letter to Virtual Iron's sales partners, Oracle says it 'will suspend development of existing Virtual Iron products and will suspend delivery of orders to new customers.' One partner said, 'So basically, anyone that built their hosting infrastructure on VI... is now totally in the s–.'"
Any transition offer that involves subjecting oneself to Oracle's pricing plans can accurately be described as being up shit creek.
This is not a fair product comparison: OS2 vs VI's end of life. Both companies buy product, in some cases to integrate, others to remove competition, and others yet again to just own the customer base. Expect the same careful moves when the database gets put down someday.
I'm willing to bet it will play out more along these lines... For existing customer who already own the product, Oracle will support them for as long as they are willing to pay for support. For those who did not buy yet - sorry, no product can be bought anymore. For previous partners, a tough break. Continue to sell services to existing customers, but don't plan for any new customers. Now would be a very good time to rethink product - any of the other VM products - and see if there might be a reasonable match to what they were doing.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
This is a good example of the purpose for requiring that you have access to and can compile the source code to the software you're using. If the current developer decides to close shop or has it closed for them as in this case, you can just take ths code to another developer or set up a new shop, rather than be totally screwed like this.
>The product allowed people to eliminate physical boxes and still run dozens or hundreds of logical servers.
For us, ESX is the difference between needing a new contract with our electical contractor (hundreds of thousands of dollars) versus working with our current power capabilities. It's not about the host machines, the licenses, or even the sysadmin workload. It's more about the power supplies and cooling the racks than anything else.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
This is OT, but needs to be said. My workaround for getting rid of that fucking annoying vertical and horizontal gray bars, and friend/foe circle icons, has now stopped working. It used to be that I could click any post in the story (i.e., "#28404197"), and then click the story link at the top of that page (i.e., "Oracle Kills Virtual Iron") to get back to the story with no disgusting graphics interrupting the flow of the beautiful words.
Now, that has stopped working as of this morning. So: fuck you, Slashdot. Burn in hell for all I care. I'll read you a lot less now than I used to. No, I'm not saying I'll stay away forever, but as soon as your continued idiotic refusal to fix basic layout bugs annoys me, I will stop reading. And that's about 5 or 6 posts into most stories.
If this is supposed to be an incentive to get me to try some other layout, FUCKING TELL ME! Don't just break shit and hope that I know how to "upgrade" to fix it.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.