Under the Unbreakable Linux plan, the company has taken Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux code and added its own patches and bug fixes to create OEL, which it is supporting alongside standard Red Hat installations, via Unbreakable.
Among the list of vendors that have joined Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux support program are hardware heavyweights such as EMC, Hitachi Data Systems and Network Appliance, as well as 170 Systems, AppWorx, Egenera, Emulex, LSI, Patchlink, Pillar Data Systems, QLogic, and Synoran.
While Oracle’s plan has drawn criticism from some open source luminaries, the company also boasted of two open source vendors that have signed up for Unbreakable: SugarCRM and KnowledgeTree.
The company also announced the forthcoming support of IBM, with the company’s BladeCenter vice president, Doug Balog, stating that the blade server business unit planned to for with Oracle on Unbreakable Linux in the future.
Our View
After several months of near silence Oracle appears to be on the offensive at the moment in terms of demonstrating support for the Unbreakable Linux plan. Last month it announced no fewer than 26 customers that have signed up for Unbreakable Linux support, demonstrating that there is demand for its offering.
IBM’s endorsement demonstrates momentum for Unbreakable, but the fact that it is limited to IBM’s BladeCenter unit also highlights that the fact that the momentum could be stronger.
While there are some big name hardware vendors in the list of supporters announced by Oracle, none of the big enterprise software vendors (apart from Oracle itself) has announced support for specific applications on OEL.
IHV certifications are good to have, of course, but it is ISV endorsement that will drive adoption outside of Oracle’s database installed base. With all due respect to those ISVs who are on the list, Oracle has some way to go to assemble an ISV partner roster that could be seen to be doing that.
