As Published In July/August 2004

By Popular Demand
By David A. Kelly

Linux—a hit with enterprises of all sizes and a natural for low-cost clusters—gets Even more attractive with Oracle 10g.

It's a difficult and ultimately futile effort to try to categorize a typical Linux-using enterprise today. Consider, for example, Eu Yan Sang (EYS), a 120-year-old company headquartered in Singapore that specializes in traditional Chinese medicine—including some 3,000-year-old herbal remedies. The company recently deployed a real-time point-of-sale application on Red Hat Linux Enterprise Server 3.0 and Oracle Application Server 10g to solve its supply chain problem. Although EYS has 72 retail stores across Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia, the lack of connectivity between its stores and production facilities resulted in continual overstock and understock situations, as well as a lack of visibility into the order-fulfillment process and current sales trends. With its Linux-based solution, EYS has cut inventory levels while increasing its sales-cycle visibility.

Euronext N.V.—Europe's first cross-border exchange, based in Amsterdam and the result of a merger of the Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam stock exchanges—is doing something completely different with Linux. Creating a competitive exchange to serve today's financial markets demands real-time data delivery and instant access to historical market data. With more than 7,000 transactions per second, Euronext knew that it needed a high-end, near-real-time data warehouse that would reliably handle that kind of volume while maintaining excellent performance characteristics. It achieved it with a combination of Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux on two HP DL590 servers, an infrastructure that allows it to efficiently manage 6 terabytes of data while delivering near-real-time intelligence with 24-hour availability.

As the EYS and Euronext examples show, today's Linux deployments are less about testing the limits of open source software and trying out cool new technologies and more about delivering rock-solid enterprise value. And while Linux technology continues to mature with ultra-high-end capabilities traditionally found in proprietary UNIX systems, it's fast becoming the solid, cost-effective, reliably scalable choice for all types of companies.

More for Less with Linux

In today's bottom-line business environments, it's frequently hard to justify new IT expenditures. That's why EYS was pleasantly surprised when it was able to create an enterprise-class solution using an entry-level Intel-based server architecture.

"With Linux running on lower-end servers without compromising performance, we have lowered our overall IT investment significantly," says Albert Sim, MIS administrator of EYS. "NEC's Open Retail System running on Oracle's industry-leading database and application server on Linux has helped us achieve real-time sales-information availability; tighter security controls; optimized inventory levels; and most important, lower total cost of ownership."

The need for a tightly integrated retail and inventory system is critical to the smooth running, cost-effectiveness, and success of Eu Yan Sang, which ensures its long-standing reputation as being in the forefront of traditional Chinese medicine in the region. Working closely with NEC Solutions Asia Pacific Pte Ltd., EYS deployed NEC's Open Retail System (ORS) across 18 of its 72 stores, going live in March 2004. Now, real-time sales accounting allows EYS to control inventory levels by historical trends, rather than having to rely on each store's "memory" of sales trends. In fact, EYS is on target to reduce its inventory from S$ (Singapore dollars) 5 million down to between S$3 million and S$3.5 million within one year. But the system also consolidates orders from multiple retail outlets into one master pick list for factory fulfillment, significantly reducing the costs and time associated with filling orders. Last, but perhaps most important, Oracle9i Database functionality lets EYS management have the real-time data it needs for more efficient and reliable ad hoc sales analysis.

In the end, the Linux-based Oracle solution has not only saved EYS money but has also increased overall availability and laid the foundation for a future, more flexible IT infrastructure. "Linux's stability gives us 24/7 high availability without downtime due to frequent system reboots. Moreover, as an open source operating system, Linux's burgeoning developer and self-help communities and the availability of freeware meant a ready source of first-class support," says Sim. "In addition, with the promise of grid computing, which allows dynamic reallocation of computing resources to be shared across departments, investing in Linux now gives us investment protection while paving the way for our future grid implementation."

Linux—The Natural Choice for Clusters and Grids

Although Linux was originally created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 as a personal operating system for an IBM PC AT, it has turned out to be a phenomenal operating system for clustered and grid computing environments. In fact, a mere five years after Torvalds released version 0.01, Los Alamos National Laboratory turned a 68-PC Linux cluster into a supercomputer, which reached a peak calculation rate of 19 billion per second while continuing to run perfectly over a period of three months.

The same attributes of Linux that attracted the scientists at Los Alamos to use Linux as their cluster operating system are the ones that are making enterprises pick Linux for their clusters and grids today: price/performance, reliability, and scalability. Companies using Linux save money through the use of commodity servers. In addition, because it's open- source, robust clustering capabilities have been added to Linux over the years by countless organizations and scientists deploying Linux clusters. Linux also tends to have less overhead than some OS alternatives such as Microsoft Windows, resulting in more-efficient use of hardware resources and an operating system less prone to "blue screen of death"-type problems.

For many users, moving to Linux is the first step in moving to a grid architecture and realizing the benefits of a consolidated and standardized architecture. By migrating to Linux, they not only immediately save money but they're also laying the foundation for a future-oriented, highly responsive IT infrastructure. That's exactly what Precision Response Corporation found when it converted its high-end SMP servers running proprietary operating systems to a four-node Linux cluster running Oracle RAC. In the process, the company converted its 70 to 80 custom applications that were using a myriad of dedicated servers to a streamlined environment supported by the four-node Linux cluster, running against only one instance of its Oracle Database.

"The real advantage we received was in comparison to our previous situation, when we were running all our applications in silos and individual boxes. When one of the servers was using 80 percent of CPU capacity and we needed to roll out another application that required 40 percent, we'd have to purchase another server—and by the end of the day, we'd have seven or eight servers that were not being utilized 100 percent," says Vishnu Reddy, senior manager of the database technology group at Precision Response Corporation (PRC), in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. "Now, with Linux and Oracle RAC, we can drive the hardware we have, placing applications on whichever node we want to—it's much better this way." Reddy also notes that running Oracle RAC on Linux significantly increased availability, because it's possible to bring down a server for maintenance or repairs by failing users over to another node.

Migrating to Linux also had a dramatic effect on PRC's costs. An independent assessment by the market analyst firm Mainstay Partners, LLC, showed that PRC will spend 37 percent less on hardware and software in the first year compared to a proprietary UNIX solution and 22 percent less over a period of five years.

Availability, scalability, and performance are important to Reddy, because PRC provides call center services for numerous large, elite customers and Fortune 500 companies. On a typical day, PRC has 2,500 to 3,000 call center operators accessing those 60 to 70 custom applications and their associated half terabyte of data. By moving to standard servers, PRC is able to take advantage of the continual advances in off-the-shelf hardware and ride the price/performance wave.

But ensuring that the IT infrastructure was flexible to accommodate new business needs or customer requests was also a critical part of switching to Linux. "If one of our customers has additional business coming in, we can simply add another node for more processing power. Then if it doesn't need it, we can bring it down and use it for standby—it's much easier in terms of managing the environment," says Reddy. "It's a huge difference—previously, if we got a new client or needed to add capabilities, we would have to buy additional hardware and more licenses, build the server, build the database, bring it up, and then manage it. With Oracle RAC and Linux, it's much easier for the IT group to manage all this at a lower cost."

Linux and RAC: Simplifying Management and Reducing Downtime

Ensuring that your infrastructure is scalable and flexible enough to handle new application and business requirements is certainly important when you're dealing with PRC's type of deployment, with its high-end clients and a large number of internal users. But it can be even more critical when you need to serve millions of businesses worldwide, as Hong Kong-based Alibaba found out.

Alibaba.com provides an online marketplace for global suppliers and buyers that's grown to more than 2.7 million registered members in 216 countries, with more than 4,000 new registered members each day. As it grew, Alibaba found that it needed an IT infrastructure that could handle the load from these millions of users. In 2003, after extensive exploration, Alibaba adopted Oracle9i RAC running on Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 as the core for its new IT architecture. "Oracle9i cluster database meets our application needs well in the aspects of performance, security, 24/7 availability, and stability. Its powerful expandability, in particular, suits the rapid growth of Alibaba.com," says Lu Guoliang, IT manager for Alibaba. "On the other hand, Oracle's positive attitude toward Linux and its strong support for it as well as constant breakthroughs made in the performance of the Linux platform reinforced our confidence in using Linux. This allows us to meet the high requirements of an e-business Web site in terms of performance and security and address the issue of cost control well."

In fact, after implementation of the Linux-based Oracle RAC infrastructure, the performance of the Alibaba Web sites improved by 60 percent. But that's not the only benefit Alibaba has seen. According to Guoliang, since the company moved to the new Linux-based infrastructure, downtime has been dramatically reduced and system management has been simplified. Whether it's upgrading the Linux kernel or changing applications, maintenance is now done without shutting down systems—effectively eliminating planned downtime. System management has been simplified through the use of Oracle Data Guard, which helps maintain real-time copies of key data, as well as enabling Alibaba to switch between work areas, making it easy to maintain hardware and operating systems.

Meeting the needs of more than 2.5 million users takes an infrastructure that can scale and be resilient enough to meet changing business requirements. For Alibaba, the key turned out to be Linux. "Efficient and unbreakable infrastructure is the basis on which a Web site constantly improves its quality of service and boosts its competitiveness," says Guoliang. "By leveraging Oracle9i RAC on Linux and the Oracle cluster database, we are able to possess such an infrastructure. Oracle9i RAC on Linux allows us to easily realize application clustering on the Linux platform, thereby obtaining high performance and high availability from the system and dramatically reducing IT costs."

The Hardware Equation

As in many other organizations, hardware choices played an important part in the decision of the Cairns City Council (CCC) to move to Linux. Cairns is in northern Queensland, Australia, and its city council is responsible for providing facilities and services for more than 120,000 people. In order to cope with an ever growing volume of data, the CCC decided to move to Oracle E-Business Suite running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a dual-processor Dell 2650, and a two-node cluster of Dell 6650s.

"The major deciding factors in choosing the Oracle/Dell solution on Linux were lower total cost of ownership, attractive return on investment, improved architectural redundancy, a high level of postsales support, the expandability of the clustering solution, and the collaborative approach and experience the vendors offered," says Cynthia Crane, chief information officer of the CCC. "We were thrilled that this was the best solution available, because it was also the least expensive—both initially and over time."

Not only does Linux often provide lower cost of ownership compared to proprietary server solutions but it also gives organizations far more hardware choices—everything from IBM zSeries to Intel-based PCs—eliminating the risk of hardware lock-in and providing a forum for competitive bidding. The lower costs and the savings can add up. According to Crane, the CCC is expecting that its new clustered Linux approach may reduce the cost of running its business by as much as 75 percent.

With a combination of requirements, the CCC selected hardware specifically designed for high rack density, without limiting expandability and performance. Its Oracle database runs on the Oracle Cluster File System for Linux, and the application workload is load-balanced across both database servers (two-node, dual-processor Dell 6650s) to maximize system performance and redundancy.

"We chose to run Oracle9i Real Application Clusters and Oracle E-Business Suite on Linux and Dell for a number of reasons," Crane says. "First, Linux is a low-cost solution that delivers the appropriate stability and capacity for large-scale applications—without the need for expensive hardware to support it. In addition, this approach meant we could take advantage of clustering to ensure high availability and redundancy in the architecture."

Linux and Oracle 10g Improvements

Not surprisingly, the CCC isn't the only organization using Linux to meet its enterprise requirements. Ever since Oracle introduced its Unbreakable Linux program in 2002, enterprises around the world have been successfully deploying business-critical, enterprise-class applications on Linux. Now, with Oracle 10g, companies are taking Linux to new levels. Oracle 10g includes several enhancements that make deploying on Linux even more compelling, cost-effective, and higher-performing than ever before.

"Broadly speaking, with Oracle 10g, we have significantly improved our performance on Linux," says Jamshed Patel, senior director of the Linux Program Office at Oracle Corporation. "Specifically, we've enhanced support for more memory, more CPUs, and for much better I/O performance for network-attached storage. Overall, it translates into superior performance, scalability, and reliability for customers."

Although these Oracle 10g enhancements have a direct impact on critical deployment characteristics such as performance and scalability, these Linux changes are less about adding new features and more about extending Linux's enterprise pedigree. "With Oracle 10g, there were just a few enhancements made on the database side to make it work a little better with Linux," says Wim Coekaerts, director of Linux Engineering at Oracle Corporation. "Mainly because after a lot of experience with Oracle9i and a lot of customers' running it in production on Linux, we've found some more-detailed optimizations we can do."

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But the improvements don't stop with Oracle 10g. As the Linux kernel continues to improve and the new Release 2.6 becomes available in future Red Hat and SuSE versions, Oracle Linux customers will benefit right away. "When Red Hat releases Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and when SuSE releases SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, our products will already be certified for them," says Coekaerts. "So the second they come out from the vendor, we'll run on them." In fact, unless you're looking for NUMA [nonuniform memory access] support, it's likely that Oracle 10g Linux customers will simply be able to upgrade their Linux operating systems to gain the types of advantages expected from the next Linux kernel release (2.6).

"With the 2.6 kernel, the memory and hardware limitations that we have today will be gone," explains Coekaerts. "You'll basically be able to scale to the hardware's limits—you can support 64,000 disks instead of today's 255, or 64GB or 512GB of memory instead of today's 16GB or 32GB. Release 2.6 will also have hot-pluggable CPU support, so, on the fly, you can turn CPUs on and off or add and remove cards more easily. All in all, it will be a huge difference in scalability. A large number of CPUs, a large amount of memory, a large number of disks—all those limitations we have today will pretty much be gone with 2.6, and Linux will be equivalent to all the high-end OSs out there."

Although enterprises will have to wait for future Red Hat and SuSE releases to reach those heights, there is an intermediate step available today for companies that want to push the Linux envelope. In addition to supporting Linux on 32-bit Intel systems, 64-bit Intel systems, and the S390 mainframe version, Oracle released a production version for AMD-64-based servers. "You get 64-bit capabilities out of the box at basically the same price as a 32-bit system," says Coekaerts. "So the restrictions you might encounter today to make large memory work will just disappear out of the box on an AMD-64 system. It's important, because perhaps 70 percent of the problems we see are related to the memory-management problems of trying to do 64-bit-type work on a 32-bit system. So if you run on an AMD-64 or the new 64-bit Intel chip, those problems will just go away."