Let's see if they actually do something about it that's more impressive than just making their software compatible, this time. Frankly, I hope so.
I've seen Linux as a strategic platform for years. In 1998, using the initial release of "the slash" code base, I had a blog called "ontopofit.com". Before Pythian became successful in the dba managed services space, I used to write on there.
I posted on The Pythian Group Blog earlier this year, reprising and linking to an article that I originally wrote about Oracle on Linux in, get this, 1998! My conclusion:
"I'm calling it Linux and Oracle in the enterprise. That's where the smart money is. What can NT do to compete with the features that Oracle coupled with Linux can provide? I invite those who may disagree, or who can add to this conversation, to post here with short comments or to submit a dissenting editorial if you like. The more I think about Oracle and Linux in the enterprise, the more I'm sure. Think about it."
Here at Pythian Remote DBA we've had a client these past two years called Omnipod. They run a good shop and the tech guys there are absolute tops.
Their software is a turnkey hosted secure instant messaging platform. It integrates with the big three networks just fine. It has amazing archiving and audit abilities, thus its popularity in the financial sector (those dudes have to keep all written communication for a few years or they're not allowed to use it at all).
Furthermore, it has an extremely cool feature that's not in any of Y! AIM or MSN: You can create Venn-diagram like overlap groups so that line workers can't just IM the CEO, and so that you can control the communication of presence information inside and outside the group.
It's all very cool and I can recommend it without hesitating. Although it's not FOS, the fact that you don't have to administer it and that you can be up and running tomorrow totally kicks ass.
I can tell from the tone of this review that a lot of pointy-haired purchasing managers are going to be dying to use these for enterprise database applications. I can feel the tense discussions coming on strong now.
That's why I posted the following manifesto: 750G Disks are BAHD for DBS a few weeks ago when these disks were released. Find out why huge disks are the bane of DBAs everywhere. My manifesto has been signed by the Oracle DBA industry's leading lights, please, use these disks for the purpose they were designed for, whatever that may be (home movies from your Canon S2 IS? I've got one of those and the on-board video compression is TERRIBLE!), and not for databases.
This public service announcement has been brought to you by Pythian Remote DBA.
The thing is, this affair of Oracle considering entering the Linux support arena and even shipping its own Linux distro is not new. Not even close.
It dates from 1998, during the initial launch of Oracle 8i. Since then, and arguably for even longer, Oracle has had a consistent strategy of undermining the role of the operating system by taking on more and more of the critical duties into its own code base. Linux plays into this strategy marvelously well. Except, here's the rub. Redhat is not interested in the furtherance of this agenda. Redhat wants the operating system to remain a key part of the enterprise IT infrastructure.
I wrote an interesting article on my blog titled "Oracle & Linux, Ancient History" on this subject last week, and the article links to the web archive of my original post about Oracle and Linux and Oracle's strategy to undermine the OS from 1998. The original article's title was "Why Oracle 8i Will Remodel the OS Landscape" and ultimately what we're seeing now in the tension between Oracle and Redhat is the materialization of Oracle's vision of the operating systems' role chafing on its longstanding partner.
I completely disagree that a flat monthly rate model motivates a vendor to do more proactive work.
Ultimately, any engineering services company's cost structure is directly dependent on payroll for engineers. Thus, when you say "you're finally profitable again", what you really are saying is that you're spending _fewer_ hours of work per customer than before. How this adds up to customer value is beyond me. Furthermore, by charging a flat rate, you are no longer aligning your interests (meet the SLA with the minimum contribution of work) with your clients (perform the best job possible within the budget), which is sure to lead to long-term tension.
Finally, you deprive your customers of the control over how much TLC their environment deserves, which further alienates them.
This is the reason Pythian abandoned the flat monthly rate model for managed services a few years ago. Our co-founder Steve Pickard wrote an article on this exact subject to explain and it's available online here: Beyond Repair.
My name is Paul Vallee and I am a co-founder here of Pythian.
As part of our DBA services, we outsource systems administration support for a variety of platforms. Our services are definitely enterprise database-centric, but there's nothing preventing us from helping out even if there's no database at play.
Hear hear. As an old-timer I must say I miss this part of slashdot. This site used to be, in part, a vehicle for smart, engaged, motivated and with-it individuals to comment on how their lives, as technology enthusiasts, are affected by their use of technology. This is an outstanding article in that tradition.
I've been looking for something like this for a few years now, but just for sound. I often forget things and I wish sometimes I could replay everything I heard at a certain time of day.
This would eliminate a lot of arguments in my life and it would also make meeting go more smoothly what with everyone knowing there was a record we could refer to if necesary.
The device should be smart enough to realize that keyboards clicking aren't worth recording and have some kind of interface (maybe once the file is uploaded) where you can skip to a particular time of day.
Also, if you haven't uploaded, it should go into a tivo-like continuous loop, constantly recording the most recent n hours. But with hard-drive sizes now, and with silence skipping, you should be able to get several, several days worth up on a ipod-style gadget.
My partner has lost 40 lbs using this method with Calorie Companion. Windows-only, VB app, but it lets you easily keep track of calorie intake, get reports, etc.
This is just no longer so - maybe this was true in 1998 but it's certainly not true now.
Tactical outsourcing is the easy, inexpensive, reliable and reproducible solution to this problem.
For example, you could hire Pythian. We outsource Oracle DBA and make running and managing Oracle into the long-term completely turn-key. We run some of the largest and most challenging Oracle environments in the world, including distributed architectures and shops where the cost of downtime is 5-figures per hour. We run some shops that have in excess of 50000 simultaneous users, we manage publically traded manufacturing shops, dot-coms, health care companies (including HIPAA-protected data) and we're used by other outsourcers to fill this gap. That being said, we're willing to take on any Oracle shop, from part-FTE (lots of satisfied customers) to multi-FTE (lots of satisfied customers).
This "problem" with choosing Oracle is licked, not only by Pythian but also (to a lesser degree) by Pythian's competition - we're not alone in this industry. Pythian, along with other industry leaders such as Tusc and DBADirect are working competitively to completely reinvent the production engineering challenges (and costs) associated with running Oracle.:-)
That's why it's pronouced "dub dub dub"! No-one I know pronouces that "double-u double-u double-u". Even those working ISP tech support say dub-dub-dub.
> I disagree, I don't endorse evolution... but I > guess my opinion doesn't count, as I don't have > a PhD (or any other doctorate).
> And since this is an article about Steve's, why > does it list someone called Eugenie "Steve" C. > Scott?
> Are there 220 non PhD Steve's (or Stephen, > Esteban, or Stephanie, as the site states) that > want to join me in a non-endorsement of > Evolution (and I don't mean the Ximian product!)
> -Steve
What an ironic plan you've got there, Steve!
All you would prove by doing this is that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to believe in evolution. This will just play into NCSE's hands, don't you think, about the teaching of evolution?:-)
How about 220 PhD Steve's non-endorsing evolution... what, too hard? lol
This software got superb reviews from heroes of science long before Fast Company. Notably, Richard P Feynman, Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology, noted in his appendix to the Rogers Commission Report on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident that the "computer software checking system and attitude is of the highest quality" and that "the attitude to system failure and reliability is not nearly as good as for the computer system." Interesting how it seems this has gotten them into trouble again.
I'm glad the airlines don't stop all planes when one crashes.
Perhaps not, but the Columbia represented a WHOPPING 25% of NASA's entire shuttle fleet. Would flights be suspended if 25% of all 747's crashed on the same day?
There's only Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavor left now. Let's not squander them until we know what happened to Columbia.
Pollution could be a factor, for sure, but it seems that we should also consider the possibility that Silicon Valley, with it's go-go-go lifestyle and stressful jobs, could be. Check out this article in Yahoo News describing a link between stress in the 24-28th weeks of pregnancy to Autism.
Whilst it's true that email is in some senses the "killer app" of the internet, it's also one of the most over-hyped, productivity destroying pieces of crap ever developed:) On the one hand it allows for free, nearly instantaneous conversation and information sharing with people anywhere in the world, but at the same time it allows those people to send each other "humourous" clips of cats doing martial arts and Americans going "Wazzzup!" at each other, clogging networks and stopping people from working.
The trouble is that because email just seems so convenient companies love it. If they don't have email, then they just aren't part of the modern business world in their view. But this isn't true. Despite the internet hype, everything necessary can be done over the phone or even by post, without ever touching a computer! And in many cases, the computer merely serves to waste time whilst appearing to be more efficient.
It's the same here. Despite email promising to let people get in touch with their congress people, in reality all it does is let so much stuff get there that it can't all be checked properly. It's just a waste of time, and people are far more likely to get their message across if they sit down with pen and a paper and write out a letter stating the issues at hand.
And besides, the quick and easy nature of email means it's a very sloppy method of communication. It lends itself to knee-jerk, flaming reponses and mails full of factual and grammatical errors, which all serve to make the user look bad. At least with a letter you have to take your time and consider what you're writing.
Email is great for letting the office know about the next progress meeting. But it's not really very good for getting someone's attention and making a point.
So you're saying that the US isn't actually freer in reality, just in principle.
At its core, the United States as a Constitution, a Declaration of Independence... a set of principles by which the government was founded. These principles make our government different.
You know the UK has a Constitution as well, just not one that has been collected in a single work like yours. Ours is somewhat easier to change than yours due to differences in political processes in each country, but that makes ours no less binding than yours.
And just as you have your Bill of Rights, we now have the Human Rights Act. Still the UK has a tradition of moderate policies - we freed slaves a long time before you, gave them the vote well before you (scary to think that the US is only one of 2 nations with institutionalised apartheid since WWII). You've also had things like the McCarthy era, eugenics laws and various other bits and pieces that were blatently violating the Consitution... so have we, such as Portland Down (IIRC, Army experimentation on soldiers anyway), but you've had worse and more widespread...
Yeah, it worked really well back in 1776, didn't it? Dang authoritarian governments restricting civil liberties...good thing some folks had some guns to do something about it.
Oh yeah, a minority group of people rebelling over taxation they didn't like. The American Revolution was hardly a glorious break for freedom, and some of the things done to British loyalists were hardly pretty.
If you won't even consider the possibility of abuse by the authorities, then abuse is inevitable. What if the police do start abusing their power? You have no recourse, no means to defend yourself and your family. Nazi Germany disarmed their population, too, BTW.
What if the police start abusing their power? That's why we have regulatory systems, it's all part of living in a democracy. And don't give me all that crap about defying a totalitarian government - I'd like to see you try and face down the US Army.
And bringing in the Nazis? Oh, well done. That'll prove your point.
And fat lot of good a camera is going to do if a criminal with an illegal gun breaks into your house and shoots you dead. Sure, he'll be caught, but it's a little too late by then for you law-abiding non-gun-owning citizens, isn't it?
Of course in America it'll most likely be a SWAT team breaking your door down because they've been tipped off by some crack-addled informant they've been paying your tax dollars to that you are dealing drugs.
Guns really aren't that common over here you know. And when most people don't own them, nor do most burglars, simply because a) they don't need them and b) they get far harsher sentances if a gun is involved. It's the exception rather than the norm for guns to be involved in that sort of incident.
That the Fourth is one of the most gutted amendments in America, what with no-knock searches, thermal imaging cameras being allowed as a basis for warrants, drug checkpoints, asset forfieture laws and the like... I think when you say you tried something different, you mean you tried and failed:(
Slashdot Mirror
Let's see if they actually do something about it that's more impressive than just making their software compatible, this time. Frankly, I hope so.
:-)
I've seen Linux as a strategic platform for years. In 1998, using the initial release of "the slash" code base, I had a blog called "ontopofit.com". Before Pythian became successful in the dba managed services space, I used to write on there.
I posted on The Pythian Group Blog earlier this year, reprising and linking to an article that I originally wrote about Oracle on Linux in, get this, 1998! My conclusion:
"I'm calling it Linux and Oracle in the enterprise.
That's where the smart money is. What can NT do to compete with the features that Oracle coupled with Linux can provide? I invite those who may disagree, or who can add to this conversation, to post here with short comments or to submit a dissenting editorial if you like. The more I think about Oracle and Linux in the enterprise, the more I'm sure. Think about it."
Hilarious today, don't you think?
Paul
And something got to be done about it.
Raj Thukral at Pythian, in a fit of righteous indignation, has registered dbaday.com and is going to doing something about the Sysadminday DBA Snub.
Paul
Hey,
Here at Pythian Remote DBA we've had a client these past two years called Omnipod. They run a good shop and the tech guys there are absolute tops.
Their software is a turnkey hosted secure instant messaging platform. It integrates with the big three networks just fine. It has amazing archiving and audit abilities, thus its popularity in the financial sector (those dudes have to keep all written communication for a few years or they're not allowed to use it at all).
Furthermore, it has an extremely cool feature that's not in any of Y! AIM or MSN: You can create Venn-diagram like overlap groups so that line workers can't just IM the CEO, and so that you can control the communication of presence information inside and outside the group.
It's all very cool and I can recommend it without hesitating. Although it's not FOS, the fact that you don't have to administer it and that you can be up and running tomorrow totally kicks ass.
HTH
Paul
I can tell from the tone of this review that a lot of pointy-haired purchasing managers are going to be dying to use these for enterprise database applications. I can feel the tense discussions coming on strong now.
That's why I posted the following manifesto: 750G Disks are BAHD for DBS a few weeks ago when these disks were released. Find out why huge disks are the bane of DBAs everywhere. My manifesto has been signed by the Oracle DBA industry's leading lights, please, use these disks for the purpose they were designed for, whatever that may be (home movies from your Canon S2 IS? I've got one of those and the on-board video compression is TERRIBLE!), and not for databases.
This public service announcement has been brought to you by Pythian Remote DBA.
--
Paul Vallee
President, The Pythian Group, Inc.
The thing is, this affair of Oracle considering entering the Linux support arena and even shipping its own Linux distro is not new. Not even close.
It dates from 1998, during the initial launch of Oracle 8i. Since then, and arguably for even longer, Oracle has had a consistent strategy of undermining the role of the operating system by taking on more and more of the critical duties into its own code base. Linux plays into this strategy marvelously well. Except, here's the rub. Redhat is not interested in the furtherance of this agenda. Redhat wants the operating system to remain a key part of the enterprise IT infrastructure.
I wrote an interesting article on my blog titled "Oracle & Linux, Ancient History" on this subject last week, and the article links to the web archive of my original post about Oracle and Linux and Oracle's strategy to undermine the OS from 1998. The original article's title was "Why Oracle 8i Will Remodel the OS Landscape" and ultimately what we're seeing now in the tension between Oracle and Redhat is the materialization of Oracle's vision of the operating systems' role chafing on its longstanding partner.
Cheers,
Paul
P.S. Pythian DBAs post on our group blog at http://www.pythian.com/blogs/.
I completely disagree that a flat monthly rate model motivates a vendor to do more proactive work.
Ultimately, any engineering services company's cost structure is directly dependent on payroll for engineers. Thus, when you say "you're finally profitable again", what you really are saying is that you're spending _fewer_ hours of work per customer than before. How this adds up to customer value is beyond me. Furthermore, by charging a flat rate, you are no longer aligning your interests (meet the SLA with the minimum contribution of work) with your clients (perform the best job possible within the budget), which is sure to lead to long-term tension.
Finally, you deprive your customers of the control over how much TLC their environment deserves, which further alienates them.
This is the reason Pythian abandoned the flat monthly rate model for managed services a few years ago. Our co-founder Steve Pickard wrote an article on this exact subject to explain and it's available online here: Beyond Repair.
Cheers,
Paul
Hi,
My name is Paul Vallee and I am a co-founder here of Pythian.
As part of our DBA services, we outsource systems administration support for a variety of platforms. Our services are definitely enterprise database-centric, but there's nothing preventing us from helping out even if there's no database at play.
Cheers,
Paul
Hear hear. As an old-timer I must say I miss this part of slashdot. This site used to be, in part, a vehicle for smart, engaged, motivated and with-it individuals to comment on how their lives, as technology enthusiasts, are affected by their use of technology. This is an outstanding article in that tradition.
Write on, Rob. Write more.
Paul
Why not deploy Compiere on open-source Oracle-Mode Firebird?
-Paul
I've been looking for something like this for a few years now, but just for sound. I often forget things and I wish sometimes I could replay everything I heard at a certain time of day.
This would eliminate a lot of arguments in my life and it would also make meeting go more smoothly what with everyone knowing there was a record we could refer to if necesary.
The device should be smart enough to realize that keyboards clicking aren't worth recording and have some kind of interface (maybe once the file is uploaded) where you can skip to a particular time of day.
Also, if you haven't uploaded, it should go into a tivo-like continuous loop, constantly recording the most recent n hours. But with hard-drive sizes now, and with silence skipping, you should be able to get several, several days worth up on a ipod-style gadget.
Cheers,
Paul
My partner has lost 40 lbs using this method with Calorie Companion. Windows-only, VB app, but it lets you easily keep track of calorie intake, get reports, etc.
Hope this helps,
Paul
Tactical outsourcing is the easy, inexpensive, reliable and reproducible solution to this problem.
For example, you could hire Pythian. We outsource Oracle DBA and make running and managing Oracle into the long-term completely turn-key. We run some of the largest and most challenging Oracle environments in the world, including distributed architectures and shops where the cost of downtime is 5-figures per hour. We run some shops that have in excess of 50000 simultaneous users, we manage publically traded manufacturing shops, dot-coms, health care companies (including HIPAA-protected data) and we're used by other outsourcers to fill this gap. That being said, we're willing to take on any Oracle shop, from part-FTE (lots of satisfied customers) to multi-FTE (lots of satisfied customers).
This "problem" with choosing Oracle is licked, not only by Pythian but also (to a lesser degree) by Pythian's competition - we're not alone in this industry. Pythian, along with other industry leaders such as Tusc and DBADirect are working competitively to completely reinvent the production engineering challenges (and costs) associated with running Oracle. :-)
Cheers,
Paul
Of course url is pronouced "earl". You don't really say "you are ell" do you? :-)
Paul
That's why it's pronouced "dub dub dub"! No-one I know pronouces that "double-u double-u double-u". Even those working ISP tech support say dub-dub-dub.
Paul
> My name is Steve (OK, it's actually Stephen).
:-)
> I disagree, I don't endorse evolution... but I
> guess my opinion doesn't count, as I don't have
> a PhD (or any other doctorate).
> And since this is an article about Steve's, why
> does it list someone called Eugenie "Steve" C.
> Scott?
> Are there 220 non PhD Steve's (or Stephen,
> Esteban, or Stephanie, as the site states) that
> want to join me in a non-endorsement of
> Evolution (and I don't mean the Ximian product!)
> -Steve
What an ironic plan you've got there, Steve!
All you would prove by doing this is that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to believe in evolution. This will just play into NCSE's hands, don't you think, about the teaching of evolution?
How about 220 PhD Steve's non-endorsing evolution... what, too hard? lol
Paul
Or, as Voltaire put it so nicely --- "Better is the enemy of good."
We're talking Russian Soyuz (I spelled that wrong), not American shuttles.
No-one is talking about suspending Soyuz use, as far as I know. Can you please provide a link for this fact?
Thanks
Paul
Paul
Perhaps not, but the Columbia represented a WHOPPING 25% of NASA's entire shuttle fleet. Would flights be suspended if 25% of all 747's crashed on the same day?
There's only Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavor left now. Let's not squander them until we know what happened to Columbia.
Paul
Pollution could be a factor, for sure, but it seems that we should also consider the possibility that Silicon Valley, with it's go-go-go lifestyle and stressful jobs, could be. Check out this article in Yahoo News describing a link between stress in the 24-28th weeks of pregnancy to Autism.
-Paul
Whilst it's true that email is in some senses the "killer app" of the internet, it's also one of the most over-hyped, productivity destroying pieces of crap ever developed :) On the one hand it allows for free, nearly instantaneous conversation and information sharing with people anywhere in the world, but at the same time it allows those people to send each other "humourous" clips of cats doing martial arts and Americans going "Wazzzup!" at each other, clogging networks and stopping people from working.
The trouble is that because email just seems so convenient companies love it. If they don't have email, then they just aren't part of the modern business world in their view. But this isn't true. Despite the internet hype, everything necessary can be done over the phone or even by post, without ever touching a computer! And in many cases, the computer merely serves to waste time whilst appearing to be more efficient.
It's the same here. Despite email promising to let people get in touch with their congress people, in reality all it does is let so much stuff get there that it can't all be checked properly. It's just a waste of time, and people are far more likely to get their message across if they sit down with pen and a paper and write out a letter stating the issues at hand.
And besides, the quick and easy nature of email means it's a very sloppy method of communication. It lends itself to knee-jerk, flaming reponses and mails full of factual and grammatical errors, which all serve to make the user look bad. At least with a letter you have to take your time and consider what you're writing.
Email is great for letting the office know about the next progress meeting. But it's not really very good for getting someone's attention and making a point.
If you take away the guns, you take away the last illusion that this right still exists.
Oh Christ that's good - so you're saying it's worth keeping guns just to stop people realising they can't overthrow the Government?
Mwahahaha!! Can I use that as a .sig please?
So you're saying that the US isn't actually freer in reality, just in principle.
At its core, the United States as a Constitution, a Declaration of Independence ... a set of principles by which the government was founded. These principles make our government different.
You know the UK has a Constitution as well, just not one that has been collected in a single work like yours. Ours is somewhat easier to change than yours due to differences in political processes in each country, but that makes ours no less binding than yours.
And just as you have your Bill of Rights, we now have the Human Rights Act. Still the UK has a tradition of moderate policies - we freed slaves a long time before you, gave them the vote well before you (scary to think that the US is only one of 2 nations with institutionalised apartheid since WWII). You've also had things like the McCarthy era, eugenics laws and various other bits and pieces that were blatently violating the Consitution... so have we, such as Portland Down (IIRC, Army experimentation on soldiers anyway), but you've had worse and more widespread...
Yeah, it worked really well back in 1776, didn't it? Dang authoritarian governments restricting civil liberties...good thing some folks had some guns to do something about it.
Oh yeah, a minority group of people rebelling over taxation they didn't like. The American Revolution was hardly a glorious break for freedom, and some of the things done to British loyalists were hardly pretty.
If you won't even consider the possibility of abuse by the authorities, then abuse is inevitable. What if the police do start abusing their power? You have no recourse, no means to defend yourself and your family. Nazi Germany disarmed their population, too, BTW.
What if the police start abusing their power? That's why we have regulatory systems, it's all part of living in a democracy. And don't give me all that crap about defying a totalitarian government - I'd like to see you try and face down the US Army.
And bringing in the Nazis? Oh, well done. That'll prove your point.
And fat lot of good a camera is going to do if a criminal with an illegal gun breaks into your house and shoots you dead. Sure, he'll be caught, but it's a little too late by then for you law-abiding non-gun-owning citizens, isn't it?
Of course in America it'll most likely be a SWAT team breaking your door down because they've been tipped off by some crack-addled informant they've been paying your tax dollars to that you are dealing drugs.
Guns really aren't that common over here you know. And when most people don't own them, nor do most burglars, simply because a) they don't need them and b) they get far harsher sentances if a gun is involved. It's the exception rather than the norm for guns to be involved in that sort of incident.
That the Fourth is one of the most gutted amendments in America, what with no-knock searches, thermal imaging cameras being allowed as a basis for warrants, drug checkpoints, asset forfieture laws and the like... I think when you say you tried something different, you mean you tried and failed :(