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Ken_Cline
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Oracle to Acquire Sun

Oracle to Acquire Sun - what are your thoughts? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? To me, it seems a little strange, Sun has been giving away Java, Solaris, and pretty much everything else recently. Larry Ellison & Oracle give away nothing (unless you consider one of the most restrictive licensing policies in the IT industry a "give away").

Where do you see this going?

Ken Cline

VMware vExpert 2009

VMware Communities User Moderator

Blogging at: http://KensVirtualReality.wordpress.com/

Ken Cline VMware vExpert 2009 VMware Communities User Moderator Blogging at: http://KensVirtualReality.wordpress.com/
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Texiwill
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Hello,

Let me see..... Oracle picks up Virtual Iron, Now VIrtual Box. So given Oracle's Xen like tool plus these other 2, they have now 3 virtualization products.

Let me see.... One competitor to Oracle is MySql, this could be just a way to change this, however I think they would slit their own throats by doing this. MySQL is one of the more popular LAMP tools.

Let me see.... Just increasing their technology portfolio, MySQL, Virtual Box, Solaris, SAN/NAS server.... etc. etc.

I think it will depend on what Oracle will do with the technology. I doubt Oracle wants the servers but hey maybe they want them to start to create their on UCS like device..... Sun does have something like that.

However, Oracle seems to be picking up quite a bit of low hanging fruit....


Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.
Blue Gears and SearchVMware Pro Blogs -- Top Virtualization Security Links -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
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mreferre
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Larry doesn't surprise me any longer.

A pure software company that buys a hardware vendor (yes Sun has a software division but it's basically a charity since they don't make money out of it).

>“The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. “Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an

>integrated system – applications to disk – where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves"

Basically an AS/400. History repeating. Well done Larry.

Massimo.

Massimo Re Ferre' VMware vCloud Architect twitter.com/mreferre www.it20.info
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NWhiley
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Oracle have already started with their 'unbreakable' linux as an OS.

Now they are adding in HW manufacture.

So a vendor that makes the hardware, the OS and the software. Historically this hasn't fared well, IBM, Apple etc but the market is different now.

Apple are doing well for a niche player (I am writing this on a Mac so don't get the wrong idea - <10% market share is not major player) and maybe it is time for one of the big boys to have another crack at owning the whole stack.

My concerns would be that Oracle start to insist you run their software (including all the recent BEA aquisitions) on SUN/Oracle hardware and use their OS. I have to say, I like the SUN kit, but imho the HP ProLiant range is the sweet spot, so there will be a lot of work to do there.

I have run Oracle on Solaris, RHEL and HP/UX and there is little between them tbh, so they will have to make it very compelling to switch to their OS as a preferred one for Oracle. I just hope they don't release new features on the version optimised for their OS first, that would be a tad unsporting.

Then we get to virtualization, will it be Xen only?

Neil VCP
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azn2kew
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I would like to see IBM take over Sun because they have some common services and solutions, but I guess it doesn't fit into their organization than. Looks like its gonna be challenge for hardware/software vendors especially virtualization and wondering how far behind is Oracle VM comparing to vSphere folks?

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Stefan Nguyen

VMware vExpert 2009

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!! Regards, Stefan Nguyen VMware vExpert 2009 iGeek Systems Inc. VMware vExpert, VCP 3 & 4, VSP, VTSP, CCA, CCEA, CCNA, MCSA, EMCSE, EMCISA
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Texiwill
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Hello,

Having a ready made virtualization portfolio is one thing, but getting ownership of MySQL which is Oracle's chief competitor in many a space has to be the icing on the cake for them. I fully expect MySQL (opensource) version to pop up as some other name. I think Oracle and virtualization is very far behind the curve but everything they have is Xen based... Perhaps Oracle will by Xenserver from Citrix next.... But unless Oracle puts engineers on it it will never reach the capability of VMware.

Having their own hardware is a plus I guess....


Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.
Blue Gears and SearchVMware Pro Blogs -- Top Virtualization Security Links -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
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azn2kew
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I'm not sure what's Oracle goal for competiting virtualization market, but tested their Oracle VM its pretty much Xen hypervisor nothing far beyond VMware capabilities. I wouldn't think Oracle need to buy Citrix Xen Server though, what Oracle could do, is integrated virtualization solution with their Oracle products as requirements for their customers and eventually forcing them to adapt to Oracle virtualization platforms. I'm curious why Oracle DB is top notch and they have to acquired MySQL (free to communities) what's good for them? The hardware space is pretty slick so they will take advantage no doubt. No matter what happened, MySQL will have to be free as it right?

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

VMware vExpert 2009

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!! Regards, Stefan Nguyen VMware vExpert 2009 iGeek Systems Inc. VMware vExpert, VCP 3 & 4, VSP, VTSP, CCA, CCEA, CCNA, MCSA, EMCSE, EMCISA
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mreferre
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This deal has a scope that goes well beyond "x86 virtualization". In fact I doubt that those that signed for the merger even know what Sun has in its "x86 virtualization arsenal". This is about getting things like the Sun installed base, the potential of providing an end-to-end solution (Application, DB, OS, HW) as "Larry" mentioned and last but not least control over Java (which Oracle uses extensively as far as I understand).

Sure the Oracle people will bump into names like VirtualBox and xVM during their "housekeeping" of the Sun portfolio and they will wonder "what the h&££ are these things?!?".

I wouldn't personally expect the OracleSun combo to be a serious virtualization player in the future (not that they were serious anyway when they were sitting apart). They will have other areas to get concentrated on.

Just my 2 cents.

Massimo.

Massimo Re Ferre' VMware vCloud Architect twitter.com/mreferre www.it20.info
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meistermn
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Why didn't IBM buy SUN?

IBM had 12 billion profit in 2008.

After HP, Dell and then IBM had given up to buy SUN, was SUN maybe near insolvent or bankrupt ?

And now a software Company like Oracel will change this game against the other three hardware vendors ? I doubt ,oracel can to this. Allthough their db is to expensive.

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wila
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A major reason for Oracle is be able to own java. As Massimo correctly remarked, lots of their management tools are written java, so for them to be able to control that better is a good reason by itself. It will allow them to make their "Unbreakable" distribution smoother in regards with updates and security patches.

One of the things i wonder about if they now would move away from RHEL to Solaris. Solaris has historically better database performance and stability as about any other OS. It used to be the preferred platform for PostgreSQL (the BSD licensed competition for Oracle Smiley Wink )

With the ZFS filesystem also being well integrated into Solaris, that would be a logical step to me. It would make a very nice unix database platform.

Will it be free? For development probably yes, but for deploying it will be premium.

What about mySQL? Hard to say. I also expect the project to fork and a "new" mySQL to arise pushed by developers that do not like the Oracle take over. In addition I also think that Oracle will continue to develop and improve the mySQL database platform. While it is sort of competition, it usually only is so in a different part of the market, so from my point of view, they are just extending their market position.

They have a LOT of capable developers and solid management in place, so they can actually push mySQL development.

Oracle is a bit less geeky as Sun and in this case that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

Virtualisation wise, i expect them to mainly focus on what they will ship in their Unbreakable platform, not sure which one that will be.

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Wil

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| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
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mreferre
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There are so many path they could take strategically that it would be difficult to predict something.

The Solaris thing is interesting but one of the problems SUN had was how to make money out of it (The majority of the profits were coming from the SPARC hw business and the software was just an enabler of that - not a business in itself). I think they suffered from the fact that now ISVs are more focused on Linux (to port/build their applications) rather than Solaris.

I don't see how Oracle could change this trend (AND make money out of it). The other option would be to use Solaris as a wrapper of their applications to create appliances (either physical or virtual) but again if they do so Solaris would be relegated to be a sort of "super Oracle DLL" so to speak. Not the multi-purpose OS it is (supposed to be) today.

Only Larry knows .... maybe.

Massimo.

Massimo Re Ferre' VMware vCloud Architect twitter.com/mreferre www.it20.info
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