Re: Oracle on Linux Anyone?

AS the originator of this question, let me explain why the question.

I am a Systems programmer on an IBM VM/ESA platform. Recently, LINUX for S/390 was installed on one of my systems. In justifying the effort, I looked around at application groups that could benefit by having a very powerful *nix server platform to work with. The first group that jumped out is running approx. 250 Solaris machines with Oracle. This 250 includes Prod, Dev, hot standby and test. The group was being forced to relocate 150 miles away. In planning the move their inventory of machines showed some older less stable hardware (being used for dev & test) which they need to replace. The 80 machines they are preparing specs for will cost 9K-12k each. On the other hand I could run 80 copies of Linux on my system with little or no processor impact.

So the issue here is cutting $800k in hardware, plus significant network costs $3-6k per month (my system can virtualize the network connections required), plus more than half of their support staff will not move to the new location so this could cut out some full time employees cost, we estimated a first year savings of $1million. with next 4 years $400k annual savings.

Of course right now Oracle only supports Linux on an Intel platform.

regards
Phil Tully

"Eric D. Pierce" wrote:
>
> Date sent: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 23:54:18 -0800
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> Send reply to: ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com
>
> > > excerpt: Support was another factor in
> > > choosing Linux, Google said. The
> > > company has Linux expertise
> > > in-house, and values the ability to
> > > look at the source code to correct
> > > problems, rather than having to
> > > rely on a vendor.
> >
> > This is often touted as an advantage of Linux, but it doesn't stand
> > up to real world operations.
>
> ??????
>
> Isn't having one of the most popular search engines running on *4000*
> servers "real world"?
>
> It seemed to me that the article is fairly explicit in stating that
> google's OS adventures are oriented toward having strong "in house"
> R&D.
>
> They never said that it was an example of a good platform for
> "traditional" database applications purchased/supported from outside.
>
> the whole article is at:
>
> http://www.internetwk.com/story/INW20000530S0004
>
> (linked from: http://www.google.com/press.html )
>
> The following article identifies google's lead network engineer as a
> former ***research neurosurgeon*** at Stanford U.:
>
> http://www.linux.com/jobs/newsitem.phtml?sid=72&aid=8848
>
> I guess if you are used to doing brain surgery, taking apart an
> operating system and putting it back together on thousands of
> machines isn't that big of a deal!
>
> Some general background info on the "state of the art" in search
> technology:
>
> http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v405/n6783/full/405112a0_fs.html
> -
> http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/k53/clever.html
>
> Google authors' academic paper (links to .pdf file, etc):
>
> http://dbpubs.stanford.edu/pub/1998-8
>
> HTML version:
>
> http://www7.scu.edu.au/programme/fullpapers/1921/com1921.htm
> -
> graphical overview of google archtecture:
> http://www7.scu.edu.au/programme/fullpapers/1921/over.gif
>
> Unfortunately, none of the info at the above sites directly addresses
> the issue you raise, sorry.
>
> >For a start, we are DBAs and consultants -
> > we are not paid to debug operating systems
> ...
>
> Excellent point, in spite of the breathless dot-com culture, sites
> need to be prudent in analysing their support requirements.
>
> However, there may be sites out there that can afford to be more
> adventurous and/or R&D oriented than those in the dominant/mainstream
> business & data processing mode.
>
> On a practical level, and this is probably more pertinent to
> network/sysadmn types than DBA's (sorry), one of the articles I read
> recently on the "OS wars" stated that there is a growing trend for
> sysadmns LIE to dammitment, and setup cheap hidden Linux boxes to
> handle stuff (IP utilities, email servers/gateways, etc) that they
> were *supposed* to do on NT boxes, but found easier on Linux.
>
> regards,
> ep
>
> --
> Author: Eric D. Pierce
> INET: PierceED_at_csus.edu
>
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Received on Fri Jun 16 2000 - 07:06:00 CDT