Reply to: Linux vs Unix

[TheFaQQer]

You're kidding, right?! More like US$1m, see http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/p...ist-070598.pdf

Sorry - was only quoting the price of the machine without the software licencing on it. Build of the machine is somewhere in the region of $95k based on the prices on Oracle Store.

[Platypus]

Somewhere in the region of $90k from what I've been led to believe so far.

But don't quote me on that until it's on the price list

You're kidding, right?! More like US$1m, see http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/p...ist-070598.pdf

Insight here into how Oracle fiddles the benchmarks, Challenging Oracle’s SPARC SuperCluster Claims | Smarter Questions for a Smarter Planet

Oh, and here’s an interesting twist. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that Oracle didn’t actually use a SPARC SuperCluster for this benchmark result. The SPARC SuperCluster comes with the zFS storage appliance, whereas this benchmark instead use F5100 flash arrays (which clearly provide better performance).

[TheFaQQer]

The Oracle Exa machines don't half cost a lot of money.

Somewhere in the region of $90k from what I've been led to believe so far.

But don't quote me on that until it's on the price list

[Platypus]

Look at the Oracle Exalytics machine, which comes pre-configured on with Oracle Enterprise Linux:

You've SEEN one of these? It's been announced but not yet shipped.

The Oracle Exa machines don't half cost a lot of money. I've seen some competitive info on these and Oracle like to fudge the numbers by underpricing its own software stack below what a customer would ever be asked to pay.

Nevertheless, the Exa machines are more of an appliance, so I don't think it's fair to compare the Linux on those with the general Linux version such as RHEL running on commodity H/W.

I've seen some convincing stuff on the TCO of big UNIX vs. Linux, and x86 Linux doesn't even get close, with things like AIX costing much less than Linux over 3 years or more.

[Sysman]

It's Oracle 11.2 on RHEL6, basically Oracle have yet to respond to this

redhat.com | Red Hat Submits Oracle 11gR2 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Certification Test Results to Oracle

It's a lot of posturing between the two companies as they are now competing in a number of areas, PiTA from a end user point of view

Ah yes, Oracle dragged their feet with a benchmark on HP kit some time before their official fall out.

[Mr.Whippy]

Ah OK thanks. ClientCo are 11g on RHEL5, so was just curious.

[portseven]

Certification of what Oracle product(s) on what RH version?

It's Oracle 11.2 on RHEL6, basically Oracle have yet to respond to this

redhat.com | Red Hat Submits Oracle 11gR2 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Certification Test Results to Oracle

It's a lot of posturing between the two companies as they are now competing in a number of areas, PiTA from a end user point of view

[Mr.Whippy]

Oracle can f#&k right off, playing silly buggers at the moment with red hat certification.

Certification of what Oracle product(s) on what RH version?

[portseven]

While what you say may be true, Oracle license by CPU. You've forgotten to factor that into your costing.

Oracle can f#&k right off, playing silly buggers at the moment with red hat certification. Know of a few big customers that are seriously considering using more DB2 as a result

[b0redom]

Still think its cheaper and if done right more reliable

For example, Power7 is costed at approx £17K per CPU, and a standard 16 core AMD based rackmount is circa £6K which if you compare the spec.org ratings is equivalent to circa 5.4 Power7 CPU (assuming 65% utilisation)

So for the half the cost of a 5 CPU Power7 LPAR (about £85K) you could build a nice resilient cluster of 4-5 x86 servers that will give you way more CPU grunt that the Power7 box...

While what you say may be true, Oracle license by CPU. You've forgotten to factor that into your costing.

[TheFaQQer]

I personally think that Linux gets badly implemented because it's so easy for any total f'wit to download and install and then claim they're "experts" with no real/proven experience within an enterprise environment, then they go out and get a job with this so called "expertise".

Probably true, but when implemented correctly then I don't think that there is much difference between the two.

Look at the Oracle Exalytics machine, which comes pre-configured on with Oracle Enterprise Linux:

1 Tb of RAM (which could contain 5 to 10 Tb of compressed data)
40 cores (4 x 10 Core Intel Xeon CPUs)
Disk read rates of up to 200 Gb/sec
40 Gbps Infiniband internal network
1-10 GBps ethernet external network

BI Foundation Suite: OBIEE
In-memory parallel Analytics
In-memory parallel Essbase
In-Memory Parallel TimesTen

Good hardware, good software, configured correctly and incredible analytical performance.

[Sysman]

I personally think that Linux gets badly implemented because it's so easy for any total f'wit to download and install and then claim they're "experts" with no real/proven experience within an enterprise environment, then they go out and get a job with this so called "expertise".

I think there's some truth in that, and I've seen it in Windows environments too.

[stek]

There was 'Oracle Unbreakable Linux' too, what a joke that was. AKA 'Oracle Totally-breakable Linux'...

[Mr.Whippy]

I don't think that Oracle would be pushing OEL as much as they do if that were still true.

Of course they would! Ellison and his crew never have his customers best interests at heart... only profit.

Clearly I've never worked in an environment where Linux has been implemented right, because in my experience Linux solutions have never stood up quite as well as proper UNIX.

I once worked somewhere that ditched a large Oracle on Linux implementation after it couldnt get any sort of stability, RAC would just bomb out and halt nodes/database for no apparent reason and neither RedHat, Oracle, VMWare or the x86 intel kit manufacturer could work out why. Uptime never reached more than a week. They eventually dropped it after spending a few million and moved over to an AIX solution which went in in a quarter of the time and has uptime numbering hundreds of days.

I personally think that Linux gets badly implemented because it's so easy for any total f'wit to download and install and then claim they're "experts" with no real/proven experience within an enterprise environment, then they go out and get a job with this so called "expertise".

[TheFaQQer]

Linux has it's place for sure, but when you're talking about high end, absolute mission critical workloads I'm not sure it can compete with proper enterprise UNIX.

I don't think that Oracle would be pushing OEL as much as they do if that were still true.