Creating an easy path to Linux deployment is a task that not every Linux vendor has managed to accomplish. Oracle has done a pretty good job reaching that goal--so much so that it has a stronger partner program and new virtualization tools to make deployment even easier than before.
During last week's LinuxWorld Expo, Oracle announced that members of its Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) can now join the new Oracle Unbreakable Linux Product Focus Area. This is a change from the past structure of the OPN, as the Linux reselling, certification, and other aspects of the Linux program has been folded into the Database Product Focus Area. Now, with it's own defined Product Focus Area, partners can gain more efficient access to the Linux-specific advantages of the OPN.
The OPN is a weighty force in Oracle's customer arsenal, well-known in the mainstream IT community. Members can resell Oracle Unbreakable Linux support, certify apps on Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL), and get ahold of pre-configured application stacks in the Oracle Validated Configurations Program. According to Monica Kumar, Senior Director, Linux, Virtualization and Open Source Product Marketing, OPN "partners have lots of opportunities to expand with OEL."
Kumar highlighted the Validated Configurations program in particular during a phone briefing last week. Started in 2006, the VC program is a compilation of best practices that offer an end-to-end configuration solution of hardware, storage, networking components with a Linux operating system and application software.
Oracle isn't packaging it as an actual software stack, but when used together with the applications, these best practices are pretty close. Oracle has validated and pre-tested the configurations and posted them, along with best practices, online for all to view. According to Kumar, there are currently over 100 available best-practice documents.
Wim Coekaerts, director of Linux Engineering at Oracle, emphasized the goal of the VC program is too keep things as simple as possible for Linux users. Hardware vendors, he added, love the program, since their testing costs are greatly reduced.
"Other distribution vendors don't have the resources to do this kind of thing," Coekaerts said.
With a stronger partnership program in place, Oracle hopes to capitalize on its pre-existing infrastructure of customer relationships. But their announcements also covered some technical ground, too. Oracle used the background of the show to announce their new Oracle VM Template products.
Unlike the Validated Configurations, which provide documentation for setting up stacks, the VM Templates are fully configured software stack by providing pre-installed and pre-configured images of enterprise software. These templates run in Oracle VM, which is found in OEL. The first set includes:
- Oracle Database 11g
- Oracle Enterprise Manager
- Oracle's Siebel CRM 8
- Oracle Enterprise Linux
The new VM Templates are provided to jump-start installation times and resources, so customers can get their systems up and running very quickly. This ease of deployment is still something Oracle's Linux customers demand, according to Coekaerts. Even after all of its time in the enterprise, larger enterprise customers still regard Linux deployments with some wariness.
Coekaerts believes that a big part of this wariness comes not from the one-throat-to-choke mentality that used to be cited as missing from Linux support. Rather, he indicated, it's the size of the throat being choked.
"The Linux support vendors are small compared to us," Coekaerts explained. "Customers want someone big to yell at."
