Re: [Bacula-devel] [Bacula-users] Sun's incompetence

[Alex E. <Ale...@ma...>]

Hello,

My two cents.

I've attended the last OracleWorld in San Francisco. The Sun-Oracle deal 
caused a lot of interest and lots of questions, of course. Obviously, 
there are 3 to 4 "points of interest" for Oracle:

#1 Sun's hardware. It is this that seems to be the real point of the 
deal; the new "hard+soft combine" called "Sun Oracle Database Machine" 
or just Exadata (actually, its already v2 that is said to be fine for 
OLTP, the first version wasn't). As a showman, Larry Ellison chooses 
"one enemy per year" to tramp on, this year it was IBM. Larry has 
promised $10M to "anyone who will run their application on *any* IBM at 
one half of the speed or better it runs on Exadata", so Oracle really 
sees some business promise there.

#2 Java and its future. As Oracle has bought an enormous number of 
different software companies for the last years, and many of these 
software products rely on Java, they are believed to continue Java 
development, however, it might become more and more "Oracle-optimized" 
(that would be good for Oracle, but probably not for all the rest of the 
world).

#3 MySQL. Oracle has its own database products, also for the MySQL's 
ecological niche, at least, for part of it. All the development efforts 
on MySQL for the last years have been to "make it look more like a real 
database" (I am sorry ;-/, I am not a MySQL hater). So MySQL's usage "as 
is" will probably "go back to the basics" -- very fast and very "simple" 
(if not to say "stupid") server for high-volume-read-only transactions. 
I guess they won't kill it but sure no significant development will take 
place. Look at the BerkleyDB bought by Oracle. There is no fame and no 
glory, it just "ticks on" somehow.

 >Oracle swears that
Historically, Oracle had sweared so many times about, for example, the 
future-proofness of their suggested "technology 1", "technology 2" etc 
that were dropped a year or two later that I'd better not to listen to 
their swears...

#4 Solaris (if it qualifies for a real point of interest). Its another 
"maybe" like MySQL. IF Oracle wants to get rid of Redhat Linux (that it 
is currently working with) for some reason and/or IF Sun Oracle Database 
Machine does require Solaris then there *might* be some improvement in 
it, but those IFs are not very convincing, so the future of Solaris does 
not sound very promising.

And about the questions asked and answered (by some executives ranging 
from vice presidents to Larry). The Sun's hardware business (in the form 
of Exadata machines ;-) was clearly stated to be a priority. About Java, 
there was a lot of questions but some very "round" answers "yes we'll 
continue with it" but no directions outlined in the answers. And, 
actually, there were virtually no questions about (and no interest in) 
either MySQL or Solaris. Maybe it was caused by the specifics of the 
auditory, though.

So I am glad I use PostgreSQL for Bacula (and not only Bacula) right now 
:-).

Alex Ehrlich

Kern Sibbald wrote:
> On Wednesday 02 December 2009 05:14:25 Phil Stracchino wrote:
>   
>> Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
>>     
>>> All that said - I am *still* worried about what will happen if the
>>> acquisition of Sun by Oracle goes through - and just as worried if it
>>> *doesn't*!!
>>>       
>> FWIW, Oracle swears that they see MySQL as complementary to oracle, not
>> a competitor to it, and that if the deal goes through they don't intend
>> to mess with it.
>>     
>
> Yes, well, in a sense, they have already messed with it, though not 
> explicitly, because from what I read a number of the MySQL programmers have 
> left.  This does not seem to indicate a good immediate future for MySQL 
> whatever happens with the outcome of the Oracle acquisition.  
>
> Fortunately, Bacula has a good PostgreSQL driver.  With Bacula, PostgreSQL 
> performs very well at the high end.  See the Bacula Developer's blog for 
> performance charts ...  
>
>    http://sourceforge.net/apps/wordpress/bacula/
>
> Regards,
>
> Kern
>
>