Re: ASM on Linux 6

From: Guillermo Alan Bort <cicciuxdba_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:57:24 -0300
Message-ID: <BANLkTinwOuOg9a7Jd38is64KRWvHT0SRPw_at_mail.gmail.com>



I think this is just another step towards "being what IBM was in the '70s".

First they give us a shitty support site, then support quality has been steadily decreasing for the last (at least) five years, then they drop support in major platforms. They are becoming more and more like Apple... or perhaps they want to take a page out of the book from the company that said that relational databases were not a good idea...

Oracle, what the hell are you doing?

OT: does anyone know how much a postgre dba make a year? (compared to an Oracle DBA, actual figures are rather meaningless)

/rant

Well, this is for RHEL6, we are building a new cluster on RHEL5, and ASMLib is there and it is supported, and from what I gather they will continue to support it. It will present a problem, though, in about five or seven years when we choose to upgrade the systems (HW, OS, etc) or when we need to move to 12g (which would be sooner than 5 years I expect).

We are moving all the old SunOS systems to Linux, and the RACs are using ASMLib... I wonder what we will do when Oracle stops selling the DB altogether and only offers it as an appliance (bundled Sun server with SunOS and Oracle pre-installed). It would make most of my job rather pointless... I think that question about postgre wasn't that bad after all...

and now /rant (this time for real)

Cheers!
Alan.-

On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 8:54 AM, Gillfillan, Marianne J. < Marianne.Gillfillan_at_cais.cus.edu> wrote:

> Did anyone else see the announcement from Oracle that they will not be
> providing ASMlib for kernels distributed by RH as part of RHEL 6, only for
> Oracle kernels? See Metalink Note 1089399.1:
>
> "For RHEL6, Oracle will only provide ASMLib software and updates when
> configured with a kernel distributed by Oracle. Oracle will not provide
> ASMLib packages for kernels distributed by Red Hat as part of RHEL6. ASMLib
> updates will be delivered via Unbreakable Linux Network(ULN) which is
> available to customers with Oracle Linux support. ULN works with both Oracle
> Linux or Red Hat Linux installations, but ASMlib usage will require
> replacing any Red Hat kernel with a kernel provided by Oracle."
>
> To me, this sounds like Oracle is forcing all ASM Linux sites to buy into
> their support structure and drop RH support. When we investigated the cost
> between RH and Oracle Linux support, we found Oracle Linux to be more
> expensive than RH (when comparing apples to apples). For those on an
> already tight budget, this is not going to sit well.
>
> I had also heard that this may have something to do with RedHat's decision
> to pre-bundle patches in the kernel, making it more difficult for Oracle to
> provide Red Hat support (and take away customers from Red Hat support):
>
> http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/72012.html?wlc=1303298360
>
> If that's the reason, it's going to backfire on RedHat as all those running
> ASM on Linux will have to flip to Oracle Support just to be able to download
> ASMlib updates. They'll end up losing customers anyway. The only other
> option is for ASM customers to drop the use of ASM and lose all the great
> functionality it provides. Tough decisions ahead, I believe.
>
> Marianne
>
> Marianne Gillfillan, OCA
> CAIS Technical DBA
> Marianne.Gillfillan_at_cais.cus.edu
> --
> http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>
>
>

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Received on Wed Apr 20 2011 - 07:57:24 CDT

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