Comments on: Why Oracle is NOT going to sell off Sun’s hardware business http://ctistrategy.com/2009/05/08/oracle-sell-sun-hardware-business/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=oracle-sell-sun-hardware-business CTI Strategy Blog Fri, 26 Mar 2010 22:05:17 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Jesse St. Laurent http://ctistrategy.com/2009/05/08/oracle-sell-sun-hardware-business/comment-page-1/#comment-1502 Jesse St. Laurent Wed, 27 May 2009 13:37:30 +0000 http://ctistrategy.com/?p=459#comment-1502 Martin, Sorry for the slow response. I just found your question in the SPAM bucket. This is a great question. In the past, Oracle has chosen linux as their commodity hardware OS platform of choice. This choice was made obvious through their marketing, but more importantly their support. Oracle DB patches ship for Solaris SPARC and linux on the same day. Those same patches for Solaris x64 do not ship for several months. To the best of my knowledge, there is technical reason for this. In my opinion, this is an attempt to promote linux over Solaris x64. I anticipate Oracle will remedy this delay in shipping patches for Solaris x64. That should put Solaris x64 on equal (if not favored) footing with linux. With that background, I think Oracle will continue with both SPARC and x64 platforms for the foreseeable future. Oracle RAC has come a long way, but RAC on x64 still not the same as a large SPARC server. Sun has a solid roadmap for SPARC and for the largest systems it will continue to go head to head with IBM Power in the marketplace. Moving forward, it will most likely do it as Oracle's platform of choice. This high end market is just too large for them to ignore. The x64 hardware is getting very good and gets faster every quarter. As Intel Nehalem based systems start to support more CPUs over time, these boxes will get even faster. For applications that lend themselves to a RAC deployment, I think this will be a very compelling platform. It is impossible to say where Oracle will take this in the long term, but I believe that both platforms have years of future growth in them. Once Oracle resolves the DB patch lag issue for Solaris x64, I suspect the OS will see substantial growth in the market. It will be the logical OS choice to run Oracle in the commodity hardware space. Thanks, - Jesse Martin,

Sorry for the slow response. I just found your question in the SPAM bucket.

This is a great question. In the past, Oracle has chosen linux as their commodity hardware OS platform of choice. This choice was made obvious through their marketing, but more importantly their support. Oracle DB patches ship for Solaris SPARC and linux on the same day. Those same patches for Solaris x64 do not ship for several months. To the best of my knowledge, there is technical reason for this. In my opinion, this is an attempt to promote linux over Solaris x64. I anticipate Oracle will remedy this delay in shipping patches for Solaris x64. That should put Solaris x64 on equal (if not favored) footing with linux.

With that background, I think Oracle will continue with both SPARC and x64 platforms for the foreseeable future. Oracle RAC has come a long way, but RAC on x64 still not the same as a large SPARC server. Sun has a solid roadmap for SPARC and for the largest systems it will continue to go head to head with IBM Power in the marketplace. Moving forward, it will most likely do it as Oracle’s platform of choice. This high end market is just too large for them to ignore.

The x64 hardware is getting very good and gets faster every quarter. As Intel Nehalem based systems start to support more CPUs over time, these boxes will get even faster. For applications that lend themselves to a RAC deployment, I think this will be a very compelling platform.

It is impossible to say where Oracle will take this in the long term, but I believe that both platforms have years of future growth in them. Once Oracle resolves the DB patch lag issue for Solaris x64, I suspect the OS will see substantial growth in the market. It will be the logical OS choice to run Oracle in the commodity hardware space.

Thanks,
– Jesse

]]> By: Martin Volkerijk http://ctistrategy.com/2009/05/08/oracle-sell-sun-hardware-business/comment-page-1/#comment-1299 Martin Volkerijk Mon, 11 May 2009 18:02:50 +0000 http://ctistrategy.com/?p=459#comment-1299 Jesse, You make some good points in your blog about the coupling of Oracle with Solaris. My question is will this be on Sparc architecture or on X86? And what will it do to SUN's HW offering for the architecture that is not chosen? Thank you, Martin Jesse,

You make some good points in your blog about the coupling of Oracle
with Solaris. My question is will this be on Sparc architecture or on X86?
And what will it do to SUN’s HW offering for the architecture that is
not chosen?

Thank you,

Martin

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