http://otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/02-nov/o62dba.html The Importance of Being Linux By Ken Jacobs
Oracle's advances for Linux increase its viability and applicability. Oracle has long been a strong advocate for Linux-although I always hasten to add that "long" is a somewhat relative term in the world of technology. Oracle released the first commercially available database for the Linux platform back in 1999 and has continued in a lead role to enhance Linux to meet the requirements of enterprises, specifically in the areas of availability and scalability. Most recently, Oracle published a series of libraries and toolkits for Linux that dramatically improve Linux clustering and give developers new features for working with Linux and the file system. These new tools greatly increase the practicality and commercial usefulness of Linux. In addition, Oracle now offers technical support to customers who deploy Oracle9i on Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1. The benefits of this service are tremendous and mean that a company can now launch applications on Linux with full confidence. Before discussing the details of these new features and support, I want to examine some fundamental questions, such as "Why Linux?" And more pointedly, "Why Oracle and Linux?" After all, Oracle has decades of experience with every major (and most minor) commercially available operating system, so why invest so much effort in supporting an open-source operating system? In some ways, the answers to these questions are painfully obvious. The market is, quite simply, begging for Linux. For example, IDC predicts that spending on Linux environments will grow from US$80 million in 2001 to US$280 million in 2006, a 28-percent compound annual growth rate. Gartner Group predicts that by 2007, the Linux market will surpass US$9 billion in revenue, approaching 18 percent of total shipped revenues on an initial acquisition basis. Predictions like these speak for themselves, and it makes common business sense for Oracle to fully support Linux. (Since June 2002, more than 68,000 copies of Oracle9i Database Release 2 for Linux have been downloaded.) (continued in article)
