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IBM Oracle

IBM To Create 24-Core Power Chip So Customers Can Exploit Oracle Database License (theregister.com) 70

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
IBM has quietly announced it's planning a 24-core Power 10 processor, seemingly to make one of its servers capable of running Oracle's database in a cost-effective fashion. From a report: A hardware announcement dated December 13 revealed the chip in the following "statement of general direction" about Big Blue's Power S1014 technology-based server: "IBM intends to announce a high-density 24-core processor for the IBM Power S1014 system (MTM 9105-41B) to address application environments utilizing an Oracle Database with the Standard Edition 2 (SE2) licensing model. It intends to combine a robust compute throughput with the superior reliability and availability features of the IBM Power platform while complying with Oracle Database SE2 licensing guidelines."
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IBM To Create 24-Core Power Chip So Customers Can Exploit Oracle Database License More

IBM To Create 24-Core Power Chip So Customers Can Exploit Oracle Database License

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  • People still use Oracle? (Score:3)

    by mveloso ( 325617 ) on Friday December 16, 2022 @12:25PM (#63135660)

    In other news, people are still using Oracle databases.

    • Have to assume its legacy deployments. I don't see why anyone would use Oracle for a new project.

      • Indeed, I don't see anyone wanting to deploy anything using Oracle. Lots of legacy systems are still running their stuff.
        It's a shame, I really liked their database software. Sadly Microsoft have been learning tricks from Oracle when it comes to database licences.

      • ERP (Score:4)

        by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Friday December 16, 2022 @02:21PM (#63136056)

        Oracle is the 2nd largest ERP provider in the world, right behind SAP. Guess what all those ERP installs run on?

        And yes they sell new installs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        Indeed. Almost no new company or department picks Oracle products unless legacy issues force them to. If one does, it probably means Oracle salespeople wined and dined or outright bribed them, as they are known to do.

        If you see an Oracle salesperson, run faster than Forrest Gump on meth.

        • Almost no new company or department picks Oracle products unless legacy issues force them to.

          Yeah great fantasy. In reality they are a healthy company with a healthy product offering used (including in new projects) by a large number of companies and government projects, generating many billions in revenue and increasing year on year.

      • Have to assume its legacy deployments. I don't see why anyone would use Oracle for a new project.

        If you have a set of systems running on Oracle, and you have licenses and spare hardware and teams of people familiar with it, and you need to create a new project that integrates with said systems, guess what, it makes sense to use Oracle.

        It is insane to assume a new project means "a completely isolated system."

        Moreover, data, storage and business logic evolve independently. We create projects (namely applications) to handle the latter, and we rarely attempt to migrate the former from one database type

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by novitk ( 38381 )

      ...people are sill using Power? and IBM? WTF! I assumed everyone is on M2 and Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino.

      • +100, Funny
        There's a lot of snark in these comments from people who will be bending over for their cloud enema very soon. It's not like other businesses don't learn from Larry.

      • This is two dinosaurs fighting each other while a giant meteor blazes overhead.

    • Yeah, the same people who still use IBM mainframes.

    • Re:People still use Oracle? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Friday December 16, 2022 @03:03PM (#63136266)
      Is there some other horizontally scalable ACID-compliant database solution available? As much as I hate Oracle as a company, if you need an ACID-compliant database that scales, I'm not aware of any solution other than Oracle RAC.
      • The basic solution is to redesign to not need an horizontally scaled ACID compliant database. Its cheaper that way, which is basically a commentary on how expensive Oracle RAC is. Sure there are some that really really need it. But most things, eh they'll be fine with Amazon DynamoDB.

        • The basic solution is to redesign to not need an horizontally scaled ACID compliant database. Its cheaper that way, which is basically a commentary on how expensive Oracle RAC is. Sure there are some that really really need it. But most things, eh they'll be fine with Amazon DynamoDB.

          Amazon DynamoDB does not have PL/SQL.
          Software costs including Oracle database are peanuts compared to hardware/conveyor/building/people costs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nasch ( 598556 )

        Well I've heard MongoDB is web scale...

    • In other news, people are still using Oracle databases.

      And will for a long time. It's a decent tool for specific use cases, in particular when it is paired with other turnkey systems running on top of it. I've worked with it, and with Postgres and MySQL. Companies will use the tool that is appropriate to their specific use case scenarios.

  • So what happens when Oracle change their License? Easily done.

    • Re:Does this make sense? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cob666 ( 656740 ) on Friday December 16, 2022 @12:31PM (#63135692)

      So what happens when Oracle change their License? Easily done.

      Which Oracle will do in a heartbeat when they figure out they are losing licensing fees because additional cores are being jammed into a single processor.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Sloppy ( 14984 )

        That's an interesting usage of the word "losing." (And yet I'm sure Oracle would agree you're using it correctly.)

      • ORACLE: "I have altered the deal... pray I do not alter it further."

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tk77 ( 1774336 )

      Yep, Oracle can easily just come out with an SE3 and change the terms. Like they did from SE to SE One, and SE One to SE2

      However, the SE2 version has an internal cap at 16 threads. The only way as far as I know to "exploit" the high number of cores is to run multiple instances. (In)Conveniently, Oracle also removed support for RAC in 19c SE2, so it doesn't support clustering. So you would have to run a bunch of separate database instances and then load balance at the application level.

    • 2 maxed out EPICs will destroy this IBM chip

    • Re:Does this make sense? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Friday December 16, 2022 @01:15PM (#63135828)

      So what happens when Oracle change their License? Easily done.

      FTA the Oracle license explicitly allows the customer to increase core counts.

      Oracle Database SE2 can be licensed on servers with a maximum of 2 sockets. However, the core counts per 2-socket server can increase over time without impacting customer license obligation. With Oracle Database SE2, customer license costs remain the same regardless of the number of cores in the socket.

      Perhaps IBM thinks this is a strong enough legal (or reputational) impediment that Oracle won't change the license? 24-cores is hardly extraordinary, so it's not like Oracle can claim its unreasonable that they have to maintain the terms.

      • ... 24-cores is hardly extraordinary ...

        Well, remember that, unlike most people's x86 CPUs, each Power10 core has eight-way simultaneous multithreading, so for most use cases, a 24-core Power10 chip has the equivalent of 192 cores (which is also valid for floating point operations, as the Power CPU does have 8 FPUs per core). A dual-socket server with two 24-core Power 10s would make for 384 (truly) parallel threads...

    • I was thinking the same thing. This makes no sense. When the original multi-core processors came out, Oracle just updated their licensing to charge per core instead of per socket. No reason they won't do the same here unless IBM has some long-term pricing from Oracle where IBM is the reseller. But that's not in TFS. You can tell that a piece of software isn't adding real value when people are designing custom hardware to pay less for it.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nasch ( 598556 )

        there would be fairly substantial legal issues changing the license.

        Do customers sign really long term licenses with Oracle? If not, it's as simple as changing the terms when it's time for renewal. No legal issue, and Oracle doesn't seem to mind being regarded as a bloodthirsty organization centered more around sales than technology. They seem to have a lot of customers who have been convinced they're the bee's knees, too. I know because unfortunately I work with some of them.

  • They'll just change their terms. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MikeDataLink ( 536925 ) on Friday December 16, 2022 @12:45PM (#63135742) Homepage Journal

    Just like they've always done. "Pray I don't alter the deal further." - Darth/Larry

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfn5 ( 524972 )

      Just like they've always done. "Pray I don't alter the deal further." - Darth/Larry

      This deal's getting worse all the time!

      • Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.

        While I believe this quote is from Shroud of the Avatar, I am a huge (and old) fan of Ultima.

  • There's a lesson here, kids (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fabioalcor ( 1663783 ) on Friday December 16, 2022 @12:45PM (#63135746)

    Do not use Oracle.
    Or any vendor that try and locks in their customers.

    • Re:There's a lesson here, kids (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Joey Vegetables ( 686525 ) on Friday December 16, 2022 @01:01PM (#63135782) Journal
      If Oracle has not already taught its customers this very important lesson, then I'm not sure what will.

      • Indeed. I LOL a bit every time I see another announcement from a firm that opts to use Oracle's public cloud. We all know how that story ends.

    • Let one who is without apps in the cloud cast the first stone.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Do not use Oracle. Or any vendor that try and locks in their customers.

      Doesn't leave a lot of options left, as most larger-scale business software is designed with lock-in in mind. But if you have to, don't pick a legal gadfly like Oracle: they sue their own grandmothers.

    • Do not use Oracle.
      Or any vendor that try and locks in their customers.

      That's like saying "Do not drive a car with wheels." without offering any alternative means of transport.

      Oracle may be evil, but *every* other vendor offering those same solutions locks in their customer in some way. And good luck practicing abstinence.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Postgresql is the answer.

      • That's like saying "Do not drive a car with wheels." without offering any alternative means of transport.

        I was meant to be generic, not specific to databases.

        BUT, as said by a AC comment below, PostgreSQL is the answer. I'd say it's the obvious choice nowadays in matter of relational databases. It's free, it's fast, it's robust, it's powerful. It has a giant community support. Why in the heavens someone today would pay to be locked in the Oracle's leash?

        Oracle may be evil, but *every* other vendor offering those same solutions locks in their customer in some way. And good luck practicing abstinence.

        The only "vendor lock-in" in PostgreSQL is just the way it works, like the functions it supports, and not a stringent and punitive contract. You can run it the

  • Taunting Skynet is never a good idea.

  • Darn, we just got new Power 10 machines. Oh well, Oracle will be updating their licensing before these even hit the streets.

  • Oracle will let IBM pour millions into chip redesign and manufacturing. Then, after the chip is released, the license will suddenly be amended.
    “It is not enough merely to win; others must lose.”
    -Gore Vidal

  • POWER10 is aging, and 24 cores per socket is unremarkable. If you are a POWER nerd or a user with specific applications in mind that might benefit then so be it, but if all you're doing is exploiting a per-socket license then you'll probably do better with a 1p EPYC system .

    • Based on what real world measurement? Number of cores/threads?

      Based on leg count, a millipede is better then a human, at least according to your logic,

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dwywit ( 1109409 )

      POWER11 is in the pipeline.

      And if you're currently using POWER10, mentioning the word "EPYC" to your reseller will likely result in a competitive price for the next upgrade/replacement.

  • How does POWER compare to the latest EPYC chips from AMD?

  • I still shake my head that given all the lousy business practices and lack of technical evolution that companies still tie themselves at the hip to Oracle RDBMS.
    Shit! There are many alternatives that are FOSS that doesn't force you to sweat license restrictions and are scalable. It just takes a little research into what you really need. I know there are companies that are tied to PL/SQL as well, but trust me keeping that technology in your taxonomy just means more obsolescence and risk down the road.

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