In the next 5 years, I would think the chances of this happening are zero. Oracle, would either have to package their Oracle with each flavor of Linux, at a great cost to them, which would minimize the number of different flavors on Linux in each shop, or they will have to pick up the maintenance agreement for each Linux distribution.
Of course, they would charge it back to us. But what if they pick RedHat and we are Suse? One way or another, we will get hit with two maintenance packages for zLinux. (That is 2 times the number of IFLs, for example.) There is a company down the street from me, that is a Redhat shop because they used RedHat on their Intel boxes. But for a while, Suse had the better flavor when talking about mainframes. Big Company, wouldn't spend the maintenance dollars for Suse. You will get the same problem if Oracle selects the flavor of zLinux. This is not only an Oracle problem/concern. Consider what would happen if IBM picks a "perferred" Linux and bundles it with VM. Replace their TCPIP product with IP running under Linux for one. A real DB2 running under VM (yea) for another. But whoever they choose, will be bad news for the other venders. (I kind of like IBM being neutral on this on....so unlike their history.) After my first year in zLinux (SUSE 7.0), I liken it to operating systems of the '70s and early '80s. Back to the glass house, you gotta know what you are doing, timeframe. However, back on Oracle packaging.... IF, there is a demand for such a thing, then there will be a market that will be filled by some vender that will deliever a package for you. Back in the '90s, if you wanted a PC with OS/2 preinstalled on it, I knew a couple venders that did it. Currently, if you want an IBM mainframe with your Operating Systems, preloaded on it, your Business Partner will do it. Perhaps, the IBM Business partners already have a program for loading Oracle on zLinux and shipping the dasd image to you. But I don't see Oracle (or IBM) doing anything of the sort. Not enough money for the headaches. Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/02/05 7:32 AM >>> A new approach is needed regarding maintenance of Linux images and product installation in general. I'm a strong proponent of server appliances which are pre-packaged with optimized OS and applications. In this case, SLES9 and Oracle would come on a tape or be downloaded for a simple DDR installation onto one or two minidisks. The user would provide: 1)network configuration 2)swap area(s) 3)user data space. Upgrades would consist of replacing the appliance disk with a newer release. The advantages would be: 1)tremendous disk space savings 2)a standardized installation and maintenance process that people can actually understand and almost guarantees success 3)a good counter-arguement to moving everything to blades. What are the chances of such a thing happening? Ray Mrohs Energy Information Administration U.S. Department of Energy -----Original Message----- From: Yu Safin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 3:19 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Question for Oracle shops On 10/24/05, Tom Duerbusch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Just been working on Oracle 10g under SLES9. > > I have been looking over at the Oracle website on their Discussion > Forums. I didn't see anything that was zLinux (i.e. mainframe) > specific. > > So I started doing some searches to see how much discussion there was > on zLinux (nothing under installation, except for my post), and I > started wondering.... > > Where is everyone else getting help in the Oracle-zLinux world? > > The Linux390 discussion group (here)? > The Oracle website? > Someplace else? > > Thanks > > Tom Duerbusch > THD Consulting > Tom: It has been a night mare trying to install Oracle 10g under Linux for z-Series. No RPM is available. The java based program to install Oracle uses CPU cycles and memory like they are going out of style. Oracle can't find its modules because it doesn't know about lib64 and so on. It is amazing that we pay for Oracle when MySQL drops in place so easily. The IBM RedBook is vague. In short, now I know why Oracle DBA's are paid so well. have you had any success installing? would you be willing to share your experiences in a how-to? we run SLES 9. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
