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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.
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
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