Clear indication that Linux has arrived

Oracle’s announcement of providing support on Red Hat Linux is a clear indication that Linux has arrived. Linux, which started out as a hobby among some engineers, is today enterprise-ready and important enough for Oracle to provide support.

Is the Oracle announcement new? Oracle has always provided Linux support through its ‘Unbreakable Linux’ program, and this recent announcement is a deeper extension of that program. And Oracle’s move is primarily targeted at its customers running on Red Hat Linux.

However, customers today are using Linux for more than just database workloads. Linux has also been popular for edge services such as Web server, proxy, firewall, file server, print server, application server and workgroup servers. The cost of maintaining all the disparate systems and operating systems would be enormous and a real challenge indeed. Customers need broader support for Linux. For Novell, Linux is not just a server; Linux is a platform that can and is being targeted for specific workloads across enterprises, including the desktop, point of service, real time environments, integrated stacks for workgroup environments (co-develop ed with IBM) and more. For support for these types of broad Linux environments, Novell continues to expand potential Linux workloads.

Ask yourself—what is Oracle’s core business? If Oracle has to decide between providing world-class support for their database, or support the OS on which their database runs, what are they likely to choose?

Novell’s Open Platform Solutions and specifically the SUSE Linux Enterprise products are engineered for clients seeking a ‘desktop to data center’ platform that works across mixed IT environments and is supported directly by the manufacturer on a global basis. We have a stringent process for both hardware and software certification that partners (which includes Oracle too) undergo to get their products certified on Linux. Most organisations won’t even consider a solution that is not completely certified. When Novell and its partners certify a solution, we commit and guarantee the solution

will work.

From a business perspective, it is costly for IT vendors to support multiple operating systems. The business sense becomes even less justifiable when they have to maintain the support right through the product life cycle. Oracle may be prepared to handle the challenges of supporting an operating system, but what about the other vendors and their applications?

On the other hand, Novell has already been providing a high level of support for Oracle DB on SUSE Linux Enterprise. For example, the documentation we provide on installation and configuration of Oracle DB on SUSE is way ahead of anything that Red Hat or Oracle, for that matter, has published. Novell also supports Oracle Clustering File System (OCFS) 2 out-of-the-box.

Also, readers should take note that Oracle’s announcement is limited to the x86 and x86-64 bit platform. SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 supports over 7 different platforms including x86, x86-64 bit, IA-64 (Itanium), Power PC, IBM iSeries, pSeries and the zSeries mainframes. It works right from the Desktop to the datacenter, to the supercomputer. The advantage is that the customer needs only one OS for all their different platforms. They need expertise only in one operating system.

Customers today are reducing the complexity by consolidating their servers, operating systems and expertise to increase reliability, manageability and support. We welcome the Linux endorsement from a major technology company, but we say, keep it simple!