Oracle Builds Out Its Linux Stack

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Oracle doesn’t officially have its own Linux stack, but it is making it easier for users to put together their own.

The database giant has rolled out its Oracle Validated Configurations program. It defines an end to end configuration stack of hardware, storage, networking components as well as Linux operating system and application software.

This isn’t the first time Oracle has done Linux certified configurations. But Wim Coekaerts, director of Linux Engineering at Oracle, said past projects were very specific and too detailed.

“So now we’ve modified our approach into something that is more acceptable to a larger customer base and up to date,” he told internetnews.com.

After a few years asking customers where it hurt, Oracle has since built out new validated configuration efforts based on the information it collected.

But why such a big new push for a company that already enjoys a very lucrative Linux business?

Monica Kumar, director of product marketing at Oracle, said the new validated configurations program makes pre-tested and the best practices associated with them. Oracle’s partners in the program includes Dell , EMC , HP (Quote, Chart), IBM , Network Appliance , Intel , AMD , Red Hat , Novell , Emulex and QLogic.

The configurations are documents that Oracle makes available on its Web site, which includes materials of the tested configurations, results of testing and what kind of tips Oracle can give to end-users.

“What we’re trying to do is sort of mimic a more traditional Unix vendor setup where they have the hardware in house and the number of combinations is relatively small,” Coekaerts said.

Since Linux is deployed on commodity hardware, the number of configuration combinations is significantly larger than typical proprietary Unix deployments.

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