Technical Blog

It’s Sunday morning early in San Francisco and the biggest ever Oracle OpenWorld is about to start. It looks like it’s also going to be the busiest ever OpenWorld for me — my schedule looks crazy and I still need to do the slides for my Thursday sessions (one on ASM and one on cloud computing). Fortunately, my slides for today’s presentation are all ready to go.

OK. Don’t let me carry away — I started this post with the intention to write about what I expect Oracle to announce at this OpenWorld and it seems like the most important announcements happen at tonight’s keynote. I hasn’t been at the Oracle ACE Directors briefing so unlike them, all I can say is pure speculation-based and my wishes of what should be covered. Actually, unlike them, I actually CAN say at least something. :)

1. Oracle Exadata Database Machine v3 (x2-8) — well, that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody by now. I fully expect upgrade of the hardware — new Intel CPUs (probably with more cores), more memory, possibly more flash (this technology moves really quick these days). Maybe 10GbE network can be introduced to address some of the customers demands but I don’t think it’s needed that much. InfiniBand might just stay as it is — I think there is enough throughput but Marc Fielding noted that moving InfiniBand to the next speed level shouldn’t be very expensive. Other then cosmetic upgrade, I believe that hardware architecture will largely stay the same — it works very well, it’s proven and very successful. Maybe something should be done to let customers integrate Exadata better into their data-centers — folks keep complaining of inflexibility (and I think Oracle should stay firm on this and don’t let customer screw themselves up but who knows).
   On the software side, I expect new Exadata Storage Software release announcement that will be able to offload more and more on the storage side. The concept of moving data intensive operation closed to the disks has proven to be very effective. I also expect to have more Exadata features for consolidation. If you didn’t notice, 11.2.0.2 database release few days ago has Exadata specific QoS (Quality of Service) feature. I think this is what’s going to make Exadata to be a killer consolidation platform for the databases — true private cloud for Oracle databases or a true grid as Oracle insists calling it’s private cloud idea. Speaking about software… hm — see Linux and Solaris below.
   And back to consolidation, there must be the new platform similar to Exadata that integrates Oracle hardware and software and that should fill the gap as a consolidation offering for anything else but databases — Fusion Middleware, Fusion Apps and whole lineup of Oracle software. Whether it’s going to have Exadata in its name — I don’t know. It’s going to be names Exalogic Elastic Cloud. It would make sense to support both Solaris and Linux virtualization technologies on that new platform.
   Oh, and I hope to see Oracle start offering vertical focused solutions based on Exadata. Like Retail Database Machine. Maybe it won’t come at the OpenWorld but I think it would be a good move by Oracle.
2. Solaris and Linux — I’ve been preaching for a while that having acquired Solaris engineering team, it would be insane not to take over Linux distribution from RedHat and start providing truly Oracle Linux. I was expecting Oracle to do that for a while. Either that or change Oracle’s commitment from Linux to Solaris on x86 platform. If Oracle is serious about Solaris now then the best indication of that would be Solaris x86 powered Exadata. In other words, the future of Linux and Solaris at Oracle should be made clear during this OpenWorld.
3. Fusion Apps — god, I really hope something will be out. After all those years talking about it, I can’t stand anymore hearing about the ghost product (or line of products). I think it’s also confirmed by Debra Lilley’s increased activity over the past year — she is buzzing unusually strong about it. ;-) Of course, Fusion Apps will be all about integration of zillion of Oracle products into one system (which is a very difficult task). Oh, and if Fusion Apps are announced then they will run best on Exadata, of course. Oracle Fusion Apps Machine?
4. Mark Hurd — finally, I’d be very keen to see the first serious public appearance of Mark Hurd as Oracle’s co-president. I think he will set the tone for the future of Oracle’s hardware business. So far it’s been all about profitability which is probably the best thing Oracle could do with otherwise dead Sun hardware business.

That’s all. I’m sure there will be more. I didn’t mention SPARC and that’s not because I forgot.

This OpenWorld promises to be very interesting!

Counting down. The details are finally organized — this year, we have not one, but TWO great prizes at the Oracle OpenWorld Bloggers Meetup.

1) T-shirt art contest on stylish Pythian designer t-shirts — one lucky blogger will receive an HP X310 Data Vault, generously sponsored again this year by HP.

2) For the best, most creative blog post about the meetup itself, Pythian is giving away an Apple TV. But, there are a few small rules:

1. the blog post must use as many names of people in attendance as possible.
2. the blog post must be readable. It needs to make sense to someone who wasn’t there. It must be a story and not a list.
3. the blog post must contain one other small tidbit of information about each individual that you’ll uncover during your “networking” as you weave your fascinating stories of the evening (like their blog name, a contact detail, favorite color, title, hobby, cat’s name, certification, what they were drinking, how much they had to drink…).
4. the entry must be posted by midnight on Sunday the 26th of September. Please reference this post in your blog and it should be automatically picked up by the blog engine and posted in the comment as a track-back (if it doesn’t appear in the comments for some reason — please do post the link in your comment!

Can you tell we’re trying to encourage a little more mingling? :)

And last but not least — all this couldn’t be happening without Vanessa Simmons who’s been orchestrating all of the fun this year. Thanks Vanessa!