Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Oracle Japan Pushing Linux Business, Targets NT

Posted by Hemos on from the getting-it-into-the-cross-hairs dept.

bigengineer writes "As the subject says, according to this story, Oracle Japan wants their customers to migrate to linux. I don't think they need much encouragment. " Many of the standard reasons why, as an Oracle rep states: "Many NT users have trouble with NT operations" and "Some users complain about NT's poor performance in data analysis and some say they need to reboot the operating system regularly. " What's equally interesting is the number of companies Oracle Japan will partner with to provide the support. Linux support is getting to be big business.

3 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Linux support as a buisness model by Money__ · · Score: 4
    It's nice to see Larry E. and the 'black tower boys' pushing people to avoid ms products. Oracle has been taking this approach for years, and it's good for Open Source, good for developers, and good for users.

    What concerns me most, however, is view points like: "Linux support is getting to be big business."

    When publicly traded companys (with a responsibility to there share holders) are forced to choose between a consulting/support 'revenue stream' (ack!) and lowering bariers to development, I'm afraid they'll choose the former.

    Imagine, if you will, General Motors relasing a car with 'OpenDash 1.0.0'. Upon entering the car, you notice that the numbers on the speedometer are encrypted, the ignition key goes in the CD player, and the gear shifter is on the rear view mirror. This is an example of a design that is functional, but designed to foster factory support.

    Imagine, if you will, a distro/support company releasing source code for a 'Must Have' app and finding no comments in the source code, data structures thought up by a chimp on acid, and a layout that only the bravest of coders could handle. This is an example of a design that is functional, but designed to foster factory support.

    It's my hope that distro/support companies will balance support revenue streams with encouraging development and clean code.

  2. Re:oracle on linux by DJerman · · Score: 4
    I'd been hearing that Oracle on linux wasn't quite ready for big time yet... Has this changed - is it pretty stable now? Anyone using it commercially care to comment?

    Not quite yet.

    I"m not running it yet on an "official" test box, but the kernel team needs to support real synchronous writes (and IMHO real raw device support) before Oracle on Linux will really be ready to take off. I do however plan to "officially" study the platform when these issues are resolved (and supported by Oracle). Supposedly the 2.4 kernel will have these features. I'll then consider Linux on PC boxen as an option vs NT. It can't really compete Solaris/Sun and Tru64/Compaq, until we get advanced RAID and Fibre Channel controller support. But soon it'll be a contender for relatively low-use servers, like small business servers, development boxes or servers dedicated to a single application.

    To compete with the bigger Unices, we need better multiple processor/NIC support (for throughput in the Mindcraft zone) and drivers for high-end RAID and disk sharing schemes (and raw device support for those). Then we'll probably see a port of Oracle Parallel Server, and Linux will become a contender across the board.

    But it's almost ready to take over the NT market now. I have had some "challenges" with Oracle tuning on NT boxes, due to the odd nature of NT memory usage and (previously) problems with NTFS drivers when the disks are heavily used. Any *ix based solution will make more efficient use of resource dollars, IMHO, if it supports commodity hardware. Since the problems and limitations of NT servers (26 drive letters, etc) sorta limit the high-end applications there, too, Linux doesn't have to go as far to compete in that market. I'll definitely look at the pros and cons for my shop when we get that really-synchronous disk write and Oracle uses it.

    --
  3. NT.... by Haven · · Score: 3

    I work as a network administrator, and I had 3 NT 4.0 Enterprise servers doing file and print services sitting in my office (its more like a big room, but its mine). Everyday the second server (FP_23) in the line would crash. You could set your watch to this peice of crap. One day I stayed after work for 3 hours and installed linux and samba on it (I backed up all the data before). I configured all the services and set it up to look exactly like the old NT box. The next morning when I came back to work, it was still up.... a miracle.

    I have been using linux / samba on that server for 2 months now and no one has noticed anything.

    Anyway... all I'm saying is that companies don't know how streamless and unnoticable the difference is between a *nix box with samba, and an NT box when its doing file and printing services. Its especially cheaper if you are running linux. You could also save money on newer hardware since I found that samba boxes are alot faster than NT.