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Netstat -vat by Sean Michael Kerner (bio)

A command line view of IT



Shuttleworth: Oracle a Litmus test for Linux, Ubuntu

By Sean Michael Kerner on April 16, 2009 3:06 PM
ubuntulogo.pngFrom the 'why Oracle matters to Linux' files:

Ubuntu Linux 9.04 is set for release on April 23rd for both the server and the desktop, and though it will include many new features it will be lacking at least one key item --  Oracle certification. I asked Mark Shuttleworth founder of Ubuntu about the lack of Oracle certification for 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope and he didn't seem too concerned, though he did admit Oracle holds a special place in the application landscape.
"Oracle is a litmus test for enterprise readiness," Shuttleworth told InternetNews.com. "So Oracle certification is far more important to us as a public testament to the reliability and ruggedness of Ubuntu than it is in terms of sheer volume."
Oracle has it's own Oracle Enterprise Linux (based on Red Hat) and certifies its applications on Red Hat and Novell's versions of Linux. Shuttleworth argued that he has not seen any organization where Oracle applications represent a large number of Linux servers. In his view an organization only needs so many database servers.

I asked Oracle's top Linux exec, Wim Coekaerts, Director of Linux Engineering what he thought of Ubuntu and why Oracle hasn't certified it -- and got the flip side of Shuttleworth's answer.

"We haven't really heard requests for that -- Ubuntu is growing and is strong in desktop space and they have a server product but it's new," Coekaerts told me. "Ubuntu on the server side has not done much in the workloads for high end systems. It's up to them to create a business in the server market."
Shuttleworth however, isn't specifically targeting Ubuntu to the market that Oracle serves though.
"They(Oracle) are significant, they are important and they are mission critical but they don't represent a hugely important share of volume," Shuttleworth said.
He added that for Ubuntu, the business case on the server side is about volume, and the ability to offer services across a big footprint of regular use cases.
"Our ability to be a very good common garden variety infrastructure server is very important," Shuttleworth said. "Our positioning for the moment, in the absence of an Oracle certification is to be a defacto starting point for basic high volume Linux operations."
Shuttleworth added that he expect that Oracle will eventually certify on Ubuntu, in his view it's just a matter of time as Ubuntu gains momentum. In my opinion, while certainly Oracle has its own Linux now, they are also a very customer focused organization.

So simply put, if enterprises want Oracle certified to run on Ubuntu, they should start asking for it.

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2 Comments

jobin said:

Ubuntu need not worry about Oracle..which is afterall a proprietary RDBMS. We have other Opensource RDBMS systems like Postgres, MySQL and Firebird. and these OSS databases are increasingly poplular in this cloud computing era.

April 17, 2009 11:45 PM
Terry Grignon said:

I use Ubuntu mainly for a desktop and server for very particular requirements (LAMP open source software like Mantis, certain wikis and subversion). But there is certainly more impetus to start worrying about Oracle with the bid to buy Sun.

April 23, 2009 11:18 AM

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