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Oracle To Sell Database Hardware
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:58 PM
from the new-ventures dept.
from the new-ventures dept.
qazsedcft writes "In a move the company is billing as its first foray into the hardware business, Oracle Corp. said Wednesday it will begin selling server computers that come with its database software pre-installed."
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No Surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
One could now conceivably have a datacenter with Oracle machines, running Oracle OS for Oracle database, Oracle apps and Oracle middleware. This was pretty much the last piece.
Will everyone buy in? I doubt it - but they can now provide everything a business needs from top to bottom, if that business is so inclined.
Re:No Surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Why wouldn't Oracle just throw in the hardware with the costs of the license?
Hardware is so cheap and the licenses so expensive that you'd think the sales guy will be on the golf course with the CEO saying, "Tell you what, you buy the unlimited user license for your website for four processors and we'll have our guys build the servers, install the software (really just a drive image) and deliver it ready to go to your datacenter, all for free."
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No Surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Why wouldn't Oracle just throw in the hardware with the costs of the license?
That's pretty funny. Maybe the hardware you use at home is cheap. And maybe you even have a couple of throw-away Supermicros in a datacenter. But the Sun and/or EMC kit that, say, a publisher buys is not cheap. Just a couple of 16-way Sun servers with a decent SAN with backup possibility starts around 250K. After negotiating, that is. Now, you can say that this doesn't matter when your Oracle licenses run up to 2,500K but it still isn't pocket change like you're making it sound like.
Parent
Re:No Surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
That's pretty funny. You don't understand that most of the hardware you just mentioned is considerably cheaper to the manufacturer than what you pay (Aside from some of the stuff in the Sun boxes...but those aren't really necessary for a lot of businesses that would still have uses for Oracle). I would say the majority of the cost is for support and to fatten their wallets. Enterprise-grade anything has insane profit margins.
SANs are expensive because of the software/firmware that runs the controllers, failovers, etc. The hardware in them is relatively cheap...most of the components are standard, it's just the controller board that gets custom-designed, which is still not an overly expensive process. (SANs use the same chips that are in $1-2k NICs from Alacritech and others, and even cheaper RAID controllers from LSI, etc.)
Now I don't see making it free, but it would be a good way for them to make it seem like they are giving huge discounts. Take that 40k SAN and cut the cost to 10k and break even. Maybe on lower-end servers it would work...you can easily spec out a throw-away Supermicro for $2k that could handle a hundred or so DB users without flinching.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
That's pretty funny. You don't understand that most of the hardware you just mentioned [...]
OK, I get it. Reading back, the tone of my message was condescending. But yes, I understand that the hardware is considerably cheaper to the manufacturer. That's why I mentioned 'after negotiating' because I've seen there's a lot of room for that when buying Sun or EMC equipment (and Oracle licenses for that matter).
Still my original point stands, and that is that the hardware still is not pocket change compared to the Oracle licensing. Sure, smaller than before. But not what the GP makes it out to be
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Will anyone afford it?
Re:No Surprise (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA. There's no "Oracle machine." This is a cobranded HP/Oracle product.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
yea, it's a co-branded product, but unless they're just taking HP servers and slapping an Oracle logo on it, it's still an Oracle machine. i mean, they say they've been working on this product for a while now. unless they just mean business negotiations rather than R&D, then that would imply that this is a new line of hardware distinct from what HP has been selling.
i guess there really aren't enough details out right now to confirm it either way. the article states that it will fetch data from Oracle da
Re:No Surprise (Score:4, Funny)
Someone might want to INSERT something.
Parent
Re:No Surprise (Score:5, Funny)
That's what she said!
Parent
Core business (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Core business (Score:5, Insightful)
What about all those insurance companies that decided to become investment banks, like AIG? That worked out pretty well, right?
Seriously though, this could work for people that like to hand over the keys to one company and wipe their hands of the whole mess (a non-trivial number of companies), but any company that likes to handle most of its own IT is probably not going to go for it unless Oracle has come up with a way to optimize the hardware for the Oracle DB that no one else has.
Parent
Re:Core business (Score:5, Interesting)
Where've you been the past few years? Insurance companies used to be forbidden from operating in certain other areas. Not so anymore... look at Prudential. They have diversified bigtime.
As for Oracle in particular... this is not an unrelated product. Providing hardware for their software could potentially reduce their support costs significantly. I haven't seen any numbers, and I'm only slightly familiar with Oracle's pricing structure for support, but it seems to me that some of their clientele might prefer one-stop shopping... as they then save money on installation costs.
So rather tha seeing this as Oracle moving away from their core business, maybe a better perspective would be to think of this as supporting their core business.
One other thing to note -- Oracle's core business is no longer software, it's services. While the services business is largely dependent on their software offerings, take a look at their recent revenue figures... and take a bigger look at where their projected growth is.
Parent
Re:Core business (Score:5, Insightful)
Could be that you have a limited view of what their core business is. Is it selling databases? Or, could it be selling database services?
For a given number of dollars, what is the optimum hardware to run a database? How much memory of what type vs how much/many hard disks? Which OS? Which drivers?
Selling the hardware will let them present an entire solution that is optimized for the one thing that they want to do...serve data as quickly as possible. The customer is presented with an appliance that will offer the maximum database performance for a given dollar point. Well, at least as optimized as anything can be with an Oracle Database stamp on it.
Parent
Not Really Building (Score:2)
So this is more like what SecureComputingdoes with their firewalls when they just rebadge off the shelf dell server?
Oracle appliance? (Score:2)
The article doesn't give much information. If the objective is just to rebrand Proliants, it's not interesting. If the objective is to create a "database appliance" pre-optimized for Oracle, easy to administer and cluster, that would be a lot more interesting.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
More details here: http://kevinclosson.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/oracle-exadata-storage-server-software-part-i/ [wordpress.com]
and here: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/017553_EN.doc [oracle.com]
Target market seems to be big companies that don't want the usual hassle of configuring storage+hardware+RAC+consultants to make it all work together.
Actual Information (Score:5, Informative)
It would be nice if submitters took a moment to find some actual information, instead of just submitting the first (usually content free) blurb that they see. A tiny amount of Googling would have turned up this Oracle product page [oracle.com] with full technical specs.
It's worth mentioning that this product is not a computer. It's a 42U rack stuffed 8 dbms servers, 14 storage servers, and 4 switches. Which means a lot of low-end 1U servers. Not exactly a lot of computer power. One or two 4U dbms servers and 3 or 4 4U storage servers (like Sun's X4600 and X4500 boxes) would seem more to the point.
Re:Actual Information (Score:5, Informative)
You could have gone one step further and actually read the specs [oracle.com] before deriding them...
8-HP Proliant DL360 G5 database servers, with
2 quad-core Intel Xeon Processor E5430 (2.66GHz)
32GB memory
1-HP InfiniBand Dual Port HCA
4-146GB SAS 10K hard disk drives
4-24-port InfiniBand switches
14-HP Exadata Storage Server Hardware--each is an HP ProLiant DL180 G5, with
2 quad-core Intel Xeon Processor E5430 (2.66GHz)
8GB memory
1-HP InfiniBand Dual Port HCA
12-300GB SAS or 12-1TB SATA disk drives
Now I won't argue that Sun doesn't put out more robust hardware (for that matter HP does, the DL line is far from their top end), but this is not exactly 'low end' computing power here...
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
but this is not exactly 'low end' computing power here
It might be from the grandparent's perspective. If so, perhaps we could, uh, borrow some things from his datacenter?
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, you can borrow stuff from my datacenter. You just have to promise to consider buying it!
http://www.sun.com/tryandbuy/ [sun.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I did read the specs. I even quoted them. We're talking a bunch of 2-processor systems. In the server world, a 2P system is definitely low end.
The Sun X4600 is an 8P, 4U system. So 2 X4600s have the same number of processors and the same amount of rack space. Having all 8 processors in one system makes the whole a tad more efficient and cheaper.
I'm not suggesting that HP doesn't have something equivalent to the X4600 — I'm sure they do. I just happen to be more familiar with Sun x64 systems because th
Operational cost? (Score:2)
I wonder what their approach to maintenance and service will be. These tasks tends to be rather critical for a database system. I also expect that for many of Oracle's customers, running cost would be the decisive factor, and not purchase cost.
Maintenance costs vary rather wildly from the around 3% of purchase cost per year you expect to be charged for next-business-day-on-site service purely for computer hardware, over the about 10% per year that a supplier of really high-tech stuff will charge you, to the
Re: (Score:2)
OK, that's an argument for having a lot of (relatively) sparse storage servers instead of a few dense storage servers. But why have 8 2P1U DBMS servers instead of just 2 8P4U DBMS servers? You're getting less processing power for more money.
Re: (Score:2)
Why does more servers mean more pipes? You can easily add additional network interfaces to any system with spare PCIe or PCIx slots. And 4U systems typically have more spare slots than 1U systems.
More information (Score:4, Interesting)
It will be good for HP... (Score:3, Insightful)
That will be nice... (Score:4, Funny)
Except it's not really their first foray (Score:4, Informative)
Except it's not really their first foray:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCUBE [wikipedia.org]
This was the company that Larry invested in to build massively (for the time) parallel machines to run Oracle better. He even relocated them to Foster City to get them loser to Oracle corporate headquarters.
A company where I worked (Whistle Communications, and, after they were acquired, IBM) shared the same building with them. When they closed the Foster City office 2002 (after Larry stepped down as CEO), they dumpstered a large number of 19" racks full of interesting hardware.
-- Terry
Re: (Score:2)
He even relocated them to Foster City to get them loser to Oracle corporate headquarters.
Freud got you again!
Unbreakable (Score:2)
I predict they will be as successful as they were with Unbreakable Linux!!
(not very)
wonder what their resellers think? (Score:2)
O.K.- So this means.... (Score:2, Funny)
What about the nCube? (Score:3, Informative)
I got mine on order (Score:3, Funny)
I've already ordered my iOracle Mini for a low low price with no money down...
Not Oracle's First foray into Hardware (Score:2)
Oracle later re-named them the Oracle Complex Systems Group, then later still, axed the whole thing.
Seems someone in PR doesn't know their own company's history...
-Runz
Oracle is the new Cobol (Score:2)
Might also be linked to a move by Microsoft.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, Mr VAR, um, uh....um......Fuck you, buddy! (Score:2)
If I am Joe Hardwarewhore, pitchin' HP or Sun solutions, this really ought to piss me off. Oracle selling hardware, is tantamount to Microsoft selling pre-installed Exchange Servers, something that would end up in a Dell or HP lawsuit in a MINUTE.
Now, admittedly, VARs have literally written the book on how to fail, so I can see where Oracle might want to strike out on their own, but its bad business. If your VAR channel fails, it is your job to train them, stoke them, incen
Response to Sun buying MySQL? (Score:2)
I suppose if Sun can sell hw, os, and database; Oracle has to say they can do the same thing.
I can remember when it was normal for the same company to provide all hw and sw.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah... cause using an InstallShield style GUI wizard installer is "just so hard".
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I can tell you have vast Oracle experience...
There is more to it than launching runInstaller (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, installing Oracle is simple.. You could even install Oracle's E-Business Suite easily. The hard part is configuring it and its even harder to configure it for performance.
Behind an environment built for performance is network, SAN and OS. If the admins for theses services aren't familiar with your application or databases then chances are its not configured optimally. You wouldn't believe how many arguments I have had with OS and SAN admins who believe that they can use the same generic configurat
Re: (Score:2)
It's been a while since I installed Oracle (since 9i) but the GUI wizard installer does not increase the maximum number of semaphores, shared memory stuff etc. While it's not so hard, it also isn't clicking next-next-finish.
Re: (Score:2)
Eval versions of Oracle have been readily available
since long before Free Software was a threat to Larry's
lifestyle. As long as mysql gets installed by default
with key things like proper crash recovery disabled
then there will be plenty of room for proprietary
RDBMS vendors.