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Oracle 8i Linux port on the scene
fatherdatabase writes "After a slight delay, Oracle finally releases a port of 8.1.5 for Linux. Requires a (free) technet account. Check it out here. " It's a free download, but they do require e-mail address, etc etc. Have fun.
Following in the wake of the sucessful IBM Viavoice Flexi-licence(tm) Oracle Corp. was pleased to announce the release of Oracle 8i for Linux today, available under the new Flexi-licence system.
:P
"We place the licence in a HTML textarea to be posted when you agree. This innovative new Open Licencesing system allows our coustomers to tailor (or replace) the Oracle 8i licence in whatever way they choose, we signify our agreement by allowing you to download the software, just like users have agree to licences by opening boxes for years!" -- Unnammed Oracle marketdroid.
When asked about the risk of users putting in clauses such as "In case of snow on the north pole, all of oracles assets goto user" the oracle marketdroid replied "Oh that! Well we figure that this licenceing system is just as bogus and non-binding as any normal shrinkwrap licence, so it really doesn't matter.. No one but Microsoft could win that in a court of law".
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I just pasted in the GPL and downloaded my GPLed copy of 8i, you all should too.. But where is my source? -gm
Seriously, if a software company can say we agreed to some opressive licence by clicking a button that gives them ZERO feeback, as well as never having negioations with users... How is it any differnt here.. I amended the license, gave it my click of approival, and they obviously agreed: I'm 50% into the download!
The cognoscenti who are a little familiar with Oracle's web/ftp presences might, like myself, have just skipped going through Oracle's frequently-overloaded technet webserver and just gone straight to Oracle's FTP site and grabbed the stuff from there directly. Higher likelyhood of connection, can get ncftp to hammer if you can't connect first time, and also, it's anonymous!
...lets hear from someone who has actually USED and DEVELOPED Oracle 8.15 under NT.
Firstly, Oracle has become the industry standard RDMS simply because, as a backend database/application server, it is escellent, regardless of whether it runs on NT or a *nix box.
Most DBA's will do their administration tasks from the SQLPlus 3.3 or 8.0 command prompt anyway, not from the various GUI tools provided. Our DBA rarely used the Schema mangaer or Enterprise manager - he and every other Oracle DBA I've worked with, have ALWAYS used the command prompt. Even us developers used it - in the 9 months I worked on my last project, I never saw any kind of GUI manager - I don't even know what it looks like.
As for performance, true, NT is slightly (duh!) behind * nix but Oracle runs equally well under both - a credit to their engineers. We had very few problems and when we did, it was generally NT having the problem, not Oracle (unless you count Designer or Developer 2000 - don't get me started on those sh*tty products). But in the big picture, the problems were rare, even under NT. Thus for most applications, it doesn't really matter - use the OS your used to with Oracle (unless its a mission critical system that has to up and working 24 - 7 then I'd stick to *nix. Most apps aren't this important).
Oracle 8i runs just fine on my NT partition on a PII 350 with 64 megs of ram and 1.5 gigs of hard-drive space - so put the crack pipe down before you spout about terabyte/petabyte databases. Oracle is designed to be scalable - You can use it for a 500 meg database or a 5 terabyte database, as long as the hardware can handle it (my last project was used on a PII 450 box and took up about 1 gig in total storage space).
I'm still waiting for my Oracle 8i for Linux CD to arrive (I too ordered it 3-4 months ago). My NT CD arrived in April. BTW, both of these are the "real deal" - fully functional, non-time limited versions of the Oracle 8.15 database (and not Personal Oracle either - just Oracle 8i ENTERPRISE Edition!). Cost $0 (CDN). I can only use it for personal, non commercial use. If I need to distibute a product based on it, then I buy the licence (or rather, my client does). Sounds fine to me.
I fully agree with you that this news is very good as it will encourage a whole new segment of the IT world to try their thing on Linux - it will make developing and/or porting robust, enterprise level apps to Linux easier, which will increase the user base. Nothing but good can come of this.
But lets not take this news as another mindless opportunity to spread anti-NT FUD, especially from someone who obviously does not now or has never used Oracle under anything, let alone NT. Oracle is a good product which will do fine without you spreading bald-faced lies on it behalf. You making yourself look like a fool.
Moderators -4 Insightful? WTF? Try again...this guy hasn't got a clue enought to be even 2 Interesting
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
First, I agree that releasing to Linux is a very good idea if you want to target Internet applications.
But, I would like to caution anyone for looking down on 8i for its slow acceptance. Oracle tends to be found in the heart of large, mission critical systems. As a result, admins are always very wary of touching it. Why fix it if it ain't broke. Upgrades are almost always done just for performance or bug fixes.
New technology, such as that found in 8i, is used in new projects (or new versions of existing projects). But with less then 5.5 months until Y2K, etc, IT deptartments have put less emphasis on new projects and more on Y2K.
In the mean time, 8i is out and proving itself. After Y2K comes around and the dust settles, companies will be returning to new projects and in general be more interested in trying new things. Oracle and 8i will be nicely established and ready to serve up.
Even better, Linux may prove itself to be a great platform for Oracle 8i based internet applications and companies will be basing their new projects on Linux.
Err... I am an Oracle (and Java) developer and have been one for the past 4 years (Java 1 year). In my shop (a fortune 400 company), we are dying to get the new Oracle 8i in production because we want the new features.
I agree that most database developers do not understand the power that you can get from the features in Oracle 8i. These features are mostly do to the integration of Java. Finally, one can store objects (real objects, not stored procedures or nested tables) in the database. The result is that you can publish your Java database interface to the SQL engine. Then you can do stuff like "select object from database". They [Oracle] have combined the power of objects with the speed and proven robustness of a relational database.
The fact is that most database developers are not trained in object-oriented analysis and design (OOA/OOD). Unlike procedural programming, such as in C, COBOL, BASIC, or Oracle PL-SQL, object-oriented programming is more complex and cannot be mastered in a few years.
IMHO, Oracle has advanced RDBMS technology to a new level. In a couple of years, as database developers are trained in OOA/OOD, you'll find some amazing things happening.
Best of all, you can do it on your Linux box!
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
MySQL - small, hideously fast, limited features
Oracle - huge, all-you-can-eat features
Pretty much up to you, I'd use MySQL for a smallish app and move to Oracle when I needed more than simple SQL support.
NOTHING can keep up with MySQL's speed, but sometimes you need more - transactions, relational integrity, stored procedures, triggers, row-level locking, remote synchronization, expensive books...
I work with a site that takes 2M hits/day, and all pages are DB driven. We used MySQL at first, and now are moving to Oracle for integrity, reliability, and scalability issues.
I think having MySQL and Oracle are all you would need, as they complement each other well.
"The mind is a terrible thing to, um, uh, oh bollocks." -- Me
First off, I hope you have a backup server where you can test migrating your database from 7 to 8. For example, all of our pro*C applications have blown up on recompile under O8, because the developers didn't stick to the Oracle recommendations for the make files.
...etc....
8 days, I hope, includes precautionary backups and/or exports. Otherwise, there is no reason your database needs to be down for 8 days. But your DBA will need stand-alone time to:
1. Run the MIG utility under O7. (MIG wants to startup/shutdown the database.)
2. Modify $ORACLE_HOME
3. Modify init.ora
4. Restart as O8.
startup nomount
alter database convert;
alter database open resetlogs;
We've also had the MIG utility core dump with one of our database instances--the others have converted OK. Hince, the reason you need to do your own testing.
The only way I can think of for you to convert a running database without interruption is if you have implemented Advanced Replication. If so, you will definately need $$$ Oracle consultation on migrating a replicated database.
Also, if your DBA plans to upgrade via export/import instead of using MIG, there are bugs in 8.0.5 related to export/import. Be sure you're running at least 8.0.5.1 or later.
(MIG however REQUIRES that you start with 8.0.5 base, then migrate, then apply the patch update after all instances are migrated.)
Well, now that 8.1.5 is officially available to the Linux crowd, maybe Oracle will get around to sending me that complimentary copy of 8i that I requested three months ago.
Did anyone get theirs? I know that my NT version arrived in a couple of weeks, but I've not seen hide nor hair of the Linux offering.
I certainly hope that this is not indicative of Oracle's support for Linux. All talk? Since the update is up for D/L, I guess not, but it would be nice to run the two side by side to see how they stack up...
Still waiting for my CD Oracle.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Oracle 8i has been out for about 4 months now. But, it is not selling well. The main focus of 8i is new Internet features. It sports a Java VM, new web-based development tools, supports audio and video, and has a new file system.
Most users upgrading to it don't seem to care about these features. They just want to run a newer, faster version of Oracle.
So, why Linux now? Simple. Linux rules the Internet. With such are large percentage of Linux servers running the web, why not realease this Database to a market which might care? This database and its' new features are supposed to be for the web. Linux is the natural OS to release it for.
Of course, as soon as Linux users start bragging about how great 8i is, Windows users will demand it. Guess what? They already have it. This seems to be a backwards way of releasing it. But, Oracle is just now realizing the potential of Linux.
You can see more information about the sluggish adoption of 8i here.
1) for you who don't know what Oracle is: Its a database. Not like mSQL or PostGres or Microsoft SQL server ... it is a device-indendent, SQL based database. Oracle 8 for Linux (retail $12,800 USD, this is a demo version) is designed for 2-100 Gig databases. It is designed to properly operate on any sort of hardware -- AIX, VMS, HP-UX, Linux, NT, SCO, Solaris, etc. on and on and on. 2) If you are excited by oracle 8I and have less than 256 megs of ram on your linux box, don't bother downloading oracle 8i. Its designed with Terabyte and Petabyte databases in mind. 3) Oracle for NT is not even a competing product to Oracle for Unice ... The unix versions of Oracle are stable, efficient system from a decade of testing and development. For server functionality, you can't beat Oracle on a mainframe and Linux in my experience shows the same maturity. I doubt Oracle8i for NT would even run properly i.e. the 100% CPU spike bug. 4) There is one function of Oracle8 for Linux that is lacking -- all of the functions are character mode. There is no motif support (maybe its in 8i, havent downloaded it yet, site is BUSY) ... under NT you get pretty tools like Enterprise Manager, Schema Manager and simplistic install tools. Without these, Oracle is very difficult to learn and understand from a DBA perspective. However, the NT tools make DBA's follow the Oracle-defined idea of performance and installation, which according to O'Reilly's DBA books is the LAST thing you want to do. Since most Oracle installs on NT i've seen are 100% out of the box (the SQL command line is rarely seen) this is another performance hit. For these rambling reasons, Oracle on Linux is a strong presence ... Unfortunately, we must keep in mind that these are beta developer releases and the real meal deal starts at $10,000 USD++++++ Gerg
--- ask me about nihilism, I will have nothing to tell you.
Nope. It's a Development-only license. No time restrictions, but once you implement your application, you (or your customers) have to purchase a license. They're attempting to jump-start the Linux market by persuading developers to create and/or port their applications on Oracle (for free), then sell server licenses when the apps go 'live'. Pretty smart move on their part, if you ask me.
Moo!