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COVER STORY
Linux Takes on the Enterprise: Part 2
By David A. Kelly
Broad Application Support
Making sure that the Linux kernel can meet enterprise computing requirements is really only one step in helping companies deploy Linux-based systems. The next component customers look for is a broad array of applications to run on Linux. Key, of course, is strong native Linux support for Oracle's flagship Oracle9i Database with RAC, as well as Oracle9iAS, Oracle Collaboration Suite, Oracle9i Developer Suite, and the Oracle
E-Business Suite.
Some of these applications are becoming clear favorites to run on Linux.
"At Oracle, we've never really pushed people to use a particular platform,
since our database and application
server run on numerous platforms.
We've always let customers choose the platform that's best for their business," says Rob Clevenger, product manager for
Oracle9i JDeveloper. "But Linux is the second-most-popular platform for JDeveloper downloads, close behind Windows, and adoption is increasing. Linux is scalable and reliable. The cost per seat is definitely very interesting for some companies. But more important than price is the fact that it's the same UNIX environment that people are used to and it runs on the hardware they already have."
In the case of Oracle9i Developer Suite and Oracle9i JDeveloper, it didn't take much work to migrate them to Linux, because they are both written in 100-percent Java. The Oracle development team had already abstracted references to operating-specific characteristics when it ported JDeveloper to Java. For example, JDeveloper uses the filepath separator in Java to isolate file location references from operating systems and includes a launcher that passes environment variables in as Java System properties, eliminating the need to have any knowledge of the operating system JDeveloper is being run on. Thus, the work required for certifying JDeveloper for Linux was mostly done except for testing and a few minor tweaks.
Although JDeveloper runs the same on Linux as it does on the other supported platforms (such as Windows, Solaris, and HP-UX), there are benefits to using Linux as your development platform. Developers often find that JDeveloper tends to run faster on the same processor than on Windows, and Linux can be a better platform for complimentary tools. "If you're using CVS for your source-control system, it's definitely a plus to be using Linux as your development environment. CVS always functions better on UNIX than on Windows, because it typically comes installed on Linux distributions by default and it's easier to set up your public/private keys for SSH tunneling," says Clevenger.
Getting Up and Running
A crucial component of Oracle's Linux strategy is front-line support. Unlike its support for any other operating system, Oracle provides direct, first-level support for Red Hat Linux Advanced Server and UnitedLinux 1.0 operating systems. "With Linux, we're able to make a very simple statement," says Dargo. "If you're running Oracle on an Unbreakable Linux distribution and you have an issue, Oracle will get you back up and running, even if it's a problem in the operating system. Linux is the only operating system Oracle does that for." In other words, customers using Oracle products on these platforms have a single point of contact for all their support needs—that's one call for database, application server, and operating system. If a customer has a critical problem, Oracle can issue a fix to the customer. Once a fix is issued to the customer, Oracle communicates the issue to the appropriate Linux distributor and provides the fix back to the distributor as well, for incorporation in the kernel and future releases.
Not only do Oracle customers receive this support, but they automatically receive it free, without any additional agreement required by Oracle, when they're running Oracle on a supported Unbreakable Linux distribution.
Enterprise Security for Linux
Ensuring that operating systems and applications meet the wide variety of important security standards can be a costly and time-consuming task. For example, the U.S. government has dictated that systems used in national security systems must have independent security evaluations. While it's clearly in the best interest of traditional operating-system vendors to ensure that their operating systems can meet strict new security policies and regulations, it has been less clear who would take responsibility for ensuring that Linux could meet them. That changed in February when Oracle announced that it and Red Hat would be submitting the Red Hat Advanced Server for a Common Criteria (ISO 15408) evaluation at Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 2.
"It's quite novel for Oracle, because for the first time we're sponsoring the formal evaluation of a product we don't produce ourselves," says Shaun Lee, security evaluations manager at Oracle. The process for these types of evaluations is nontrivial—in fact, Oracle estimates these evaluations take eight to nine months and typically end up costing approximately US$1 million, between the personnel costs for managing the process, certification costs, and all the internal and contracted work required to document the submission.
Such evaluations are not cheap, but Oracle sees them as an important part of furthering enterprise acceptance of Linux. "Having Linux evaluated gives enterprise customers a defined level of assurance. Because the product goes through the same process of security evaluation as proprietary operating systems at that level, customers can have at least as good a degree of confidence in its security. It raises the security bar on Linux," says Lee.
The evaluations also provide benefits to the Linux community. Once completed, Oracle and Red Hat expect to make the security evaluation materials available to the open-source community, so that companies can leverage them and vendors can get their distributions of Linux certified. "Because much of the material we're submitting represents the generic Linux kernel, it should give other Linux distributors a very good jumpstart," says Lee.
Software and Hardware Partnerships
Software partners, including close relationships with Red Hat and UnitedLinux distributors, are an important component of Oracle's efforts to ensure Linux can meet the requirements to support high-end, high-volume, large-scale database and application deployments. But that doesn't mean Oracle calls the development shots. If weaknesses or problems are found in the Linux kernel, the Oracle team doesn't look for Oracle-centric solutions. "We don't care exactly how the Linux distributors and community implement fixes for critical problems; we just want to make sure that the functionality, the reliability, and the maturity required for the proper solution are implemented and reach the common kernel for future distribution to other Linux vendors," says Enright.
A number of enterprise-class server vendors, including Dell and HP, are working together with Oracle to bring customers high-performance servers that are preconfigured or ready-to-run Oracle products on Linux. By including hardware vendors in the Unbreakable Linux program and working with them to test and configure Linux distributions on different servers, Oracle was able to ensure more seamless purchasing cycles for customers and increase the quality of the Linux experience. "We spent a lot of time simplifying our certification rules, so that now if the hardware environment is certified by the Linux distributor, then Oracle will support it," says Dargo.
Should You Use Linux?
As with most technology-deployment questions, whether you should be using Linux now depends a lot on what you're trying to do with it. There seems to be no question that using it for well-defined applications can be a win for most organizations. "If there's a case where there's an application that is not well-understood, not well-sized, or subject to being pushed severely up against limitations, then we need to gain more knowledge to know whether or not it's a wise deployment," notes Enright.
In Oracle's case, it migrated all its middle-tier systems to Linux first—e-mail servers, application servers, and all the Web servers. "We could get two-way systems with lots of memory and CPUs that are so blazingly fast you don't need four-ways," says Coekaerts. "We've found that with Intel systems, the two-way boards are cheaper, the technology is more advanced, they have faster memory, and they have higher CPU frequencies. For a lot less money, you have a lot of power."
But there are still clearly places where Linux is not the default choice, such as huge data-warehouse deployments that need extensive disk space or memory capabilities. Real scalability beyond eight CPUs has not been proven yet, so deployments that need large-scale CPU power are probably better suited for a traditional enterprise OS. However, some customers have found that existing systems might not be a good measure of what's required to replace them. "If a customer has an eight-way system, they don't necessarily need an eight-way Linux system to replace it because the CPU frequencies are so much higher," notes Coekaerts. "A lower-end Linux box could be enough to run the same application. The combination of Linux on Intel with RAC can go a very, very long way toward meeting high-end requirements." Customers that need high availability should consider Oracle9i with RAC on Linux as an option. For example, a customer with a 32-way high-end UNIX box could potentially use four eight-way Intel boxes with Oracle9i RAC.
What a Quick, Strange Trip It's Been
The past 12 years have been a strange but exhilarating trip for Linux and its legions of supporters. With the 100 percent backing of world-class companies such as Oracle and IBM, Linux has successfully transitioned from a back-room project to an enterprise-class operating system capable of supporting all but the most demanding applications and IT infrastructure requirements. "In 2004, we're going to see more application servers deployed on Linux because of the new threading model in the next kernel. It will enable much better performance," says Giga's Quandt. "There will be no doubt about the next 18 months—that Linux will gain further market share once
the 2.6 kernel is released."
With initiatives such as Oracle's Unbreakable Linux, and the continual contributions of open-source developers constantly tuning and improving Linux functionality, it's clear that Linux's footprint as a core IT server operating system will only increase in the years to come.
David A. Kelly ( davekelly@attbi.com) is a business, technology, and travel writer who lives in West Newton, Massachusetts.
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Linux Timeline
1969 Bell Laboratories, a division of AT&T, creates the UNIX operating system.
1973 A rewritten version (in C) is released.
1983 UNIX System V is released—the major version that is still sold.
1985 Richard Stallman and his Free Software Foundation release GNU software (an open-source variant of UNIX) under their "copyleft" licensing scheme called "GNU General Public License," requiring that the source code and future modifications be free.
August 1991 Linus Torvalds starts work on an open-source UNIX-like kernel called Linux .01 as a project to learn about operating systems and the Intel 80386 microprocessor.
December 1991 Torvalds releases version .1 of Linux, after receiving programming assistance from around the world on different operating-system components. The initial versions basically consist of Torvald's kernel and a series of GNU tools.
1994 Version 1.0 of Linux is released; Red Hat is founded.
1999 Red Hat, VA Linux, and other Linux-oriented companies go public.
2001 Version 2.4 of the Linux kernel is released.
2002 Oracle announces Unbreakable Linux; Red Hat announces Advanced Server 2.1; enterprise server deployments increase significantly.
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