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The UPDATE Statement - Pro-DBA.com's newsletter (Apr 03)

In this month's UPDATE Statement:

+ Enterprise Manager new features demonstrated at IOUG conference
+ Oracle announces support for Windows Server 2003 and AMD Opteron
+ Oracle license compliance checking tool planned
+ Oracle and Dell extend partnership
+ Sponsor statement


1. NEW ENTERPRISE MANAGER ON SHOW AT IOUG LIVE! 2003
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Oracle is previewing new management features of its next-generation Enterprise Manager tool at the International Oracle User's Group conference IOUG Live! 2003 in Orlando this week. "We've actually rewritten the product", said Andrew Mendelsohn, senior VP of databases at Oracle.

Giving his keynote address, Mendelsohn said Oracle's goal is to make the database invisible. We trust this doesn't mean Enterprise Manager will "disappear" databases, a feat we've known DBAs to perform shortly before calling us in panic. More likely his comments refer to new Enterprise Manager features for managing across groups of databases, and across the whole Oracle product stack. Oracle's aim is to provide a single view of multiple systems and components at once, allowing administrators to identify trends and issues without the need to drill down into each system.

Oracle is also improving its Metalink support web site to let users automatically receive relevant patches on login. This will clearly ease the patching burden on administrators, which Mendelsohn recognised, saying "It's really boring work today; it's nirvana if you can automate it".

Less clear is when Oracle's next major database version, dubbed Oracle10i, will debut. The beta code has yet to be officially released, although it is rumoured that code fragments have been made available to some. It now seems that a widely anticipated May-June release is unlikely, making September's OracleWorld show a possible platform for the release announcement.

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More information on IOUG Live! 2003 available at http://www.ioug.org/live2003hh


2. ORACLE SUPPORTS OPTERON PROCESSOR AND WINDOWS 2003
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Oracle announced Oracle9i Database support for the new AMD Opteron processor at its New York launch on 22nd April. Subsequently, versions of Oracle9i Database Release 2 and Oracle9i Application Server for Windows Server 2003 were released on 24th and 28th April respectively, demonstrating Oracle's keenness to support major new technologies from launch.

The AMD Opteron processor is the world's first 64-bit, x86 architecture compatible processor. It allows users to run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications in parallel, and offers a significant price advantage over Intel's 64-bit Itanium processors. IBM will use the Opteron in upcoming eServer product releases and has a beta version of its DB2 database running on Opteron under Linux. Fujitsu Siemens, Microsoft, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems and SuSE have also pledged support for Opteron processors.

Windows Server 2003 is the latest server operating system release from Microsoft, dubbed "the highest quality release of Windows Server ever" by CEO Steve Ballmer. Windows Server 2003 promises increased scalability, and is expected to mount a challenge to Sun's dominance in the very large scale server deployment market. Representing Microsoft's first major product release since its pledge to improve software security, Ballmer said "Security is the number one priority. Windows Server 2003 is secure by design. It is secure by default. There will also be less security issues going forward".

Oracle was predictably proud of its new software versions. "[this] underscores Oracle's long-term commitment to providing the best database software available on Windows - at much lower costs - than our competitors", said Andrew Mendelsohn, senior VP of databases at Oracle, referring to the Windows Server 2003 announcement.

Following the Opteron announcement, Brom Mahbod, VP of the Oracle Enterprise Platforms Division said "Oracle is excited about teaming with AMD to bring the most scalable, reliable and high performance enterprise software onto AMD's low cost Opteron processor".

However, we feel a brief word of caution is warranted. Oracle9i Database is currently only available as a developer release on AMD Opteron, so no certifications exist. Indeed, Oracle's release notes list JDK compatibility issues and a lack of Java Virtual Machine support with this version. No such issues exist for Oracle9i Database on Windows Server 2003, which has both 32-bit and 64-bit certified versions of Enterprise Edition, Standard Edition and Personal Edition.

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Oracle9i Database Release 2 for 32 and 64-bit Windows Server 2003 is available for download at http://technet.oracle.com/software/products/oracle9i/content.html
Oracle9i Database (developer release) for Linux x86_64 on AMD Opteron is also available at the above location.


3. ORACLE DEVELOPS LICENSE COMPLIANCE CHECK TOOL
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Oracle is to develop its long awaited license compliance checking tool, said Jacqueline Woods, VP of global pricing and licensing strategy last week.

Oracle's absence of programmatic license checking on installation is practically unique within the enterprise software market. While this makes Oracle software deployment easier, some users have long bemoaned the lack of a compliance checking tool. According to Woods, the tool will help organisations by flagging "inadvertent usage" of unlicensed options.

The tool will, of course, help Oracle realise unpaid license revenues. However, Woods insisted that the tool will also safeguard customers' interests by flagging unused licenses, helping them maximise usage of licensed capacity.

The tool is said to be somewhere between an idea and development at this point.

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More information on Oracle pricing and licensing is available at http://www.oracle.com/corporate/pricing/
Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) resources can be found at http://technet.oracle.com/products/oem/content.html


4. ORACLE AND DELL ANNOUNCE GLOBAL SALES AGREEMENT
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Oracle Corporation and Dell Computer have announced a global sales agreement, which furthers an existing partnership between the two companies. The agreement will see Dell offer server and storage cluster packages bundled with and optimised for Oracle9i Database with Real Application Clusters. Dell Services and Oracle Consulting will also jointly offer consultancy services under the agreement.

Although bundles will be offered for both Red Hat Linux Advanced Server and Microsoft Windows environments, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison emphasised that Linux was the best option to cut operational costs. In a somewhat Pythonesque attack on Microsoft, Ellison went on to say that Microsoft IIS had been "slaughtered, wiped out, taken from market dominance to irrelevance" by the open source Apache web server.

The cluster bundles will be priced from $18,000, and a 10-day migration from legacy architectures to Oracle on Dell will cost around $35,000.

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Joint Michael Dell and Larry Ellison press release available at http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/index.html?1682350.html
Apache information and free downloads available from http://www.apache.org/


5. NEWSLETTER SPONSOR
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This newsletter is compiled and sponsored by Pro-DBA.com, suppliers of experienced Oracle database consultants, discount Oracle licenses and remote database support solutions to organisations worldwide.


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