Category: Uncategorized

ASMLib and OCFS2 for RHEL6? I don’t think so…

I was just scanning through some stuff on MOS when I came across a couple of RHEL6 tidbits.

  • Doc ID 1089399.1: “For RHEL6 Oracle will only provide ASMLib software and updates via Unbreakable Linux Network(ULN). Oracle will no longer provide ASMLib packages for Red Hat kernels.”
  • Doc ID 1253272.1: “Starting with RHEL6, Oracle will provide OCFS2 software via ULN only. ULN requires an Oracle Linux support subscription, even for those customers using OCFS2 just to store database files.”

The OCFS2 thing doesn’t phase me. I only need a cluster file system for a few shared directories when I’m doing RAC and using OCFS2 and RAC together is a disaster, so I never use OCFS2 these days.

The ASMLib issue is a bit more interesting because it is still the recommended approach in the documentation. A recent thread on the OakTable mailing list about ASMLib resulted in most replies saying to avoid ASMLib completely and use udev instead. I don’t mind ASMLib myself, but I guess this is another nail in the ASMLib coffin. I can’t see me bothering to use ASMLib again now.

Cheers

Tim…

OpenWorld 2010: ACE Director’s Meeting – Day 2

Day 2 was full of stuff I can’t speak about again, so I’ll keep this brief. The highlight for me was Wim Coekaerts speaking about Linux and Virtualization. I love listening to Wim speak about technology. It feels like you are chatting with your mate about technology stuff. He’s a real low-temperature guy. There were a few people there who were hearing Wim speak for the first time who are now converts. Perhaps I should start a fanboy club… 🙂

I intended to go to bed early, but ended up chatting until after midnight.

The following day (Saturday) was an off day. I had oringinally intended to do some stuff with a couple of the guys, but was so tired I gassed out. I woke up in the morning, got some food and went back to bed. At about 18:00 I ventured out for some food again, then went straight back to bed. Amazingly, I managed to sleep all night as well.

Cheers

Tim…

Kick-Ass…

I went to see Kick-Ass last night. I thought it was cool.

One thing that stood out for me was Hit-Girl. She was awesome. Now I’m not suggesting people go and teach their 11 year old daughters how to brutally slay people and come out with lines like, ”OK you c—s, let’s see what you can do”, but it makes a change from the vacuous lead girls in recent years. The likes of Moonlight and The Vampire Diaries seem to suggest a woman’s only role in life is to look pretty and sit around pining over her moodily cool boyfriend. Certainly not the sort of role model I would want for any daughter of mine.

Where is Ellen Ripley when you need her?

Cheers

Tim…

Red Hat heading for Oracle buyout?

I know it’s been said before, but I read this and thought, once Red Hat’s market value starts to drop Oracle could get a really good deal.

I thought the reference to the quality of Red Hat’s support was quite comical. I’ve always found their support to be terrible. To be more specific, you raise a service request and never get a response. If that is quality support I obviously have very different standards to the CIOs surveyed.

Cheers

Tim…

Get your OTN Installfest Media kits…

The first 500 people at Wim Coekaerts (VP of Linux and Virtualization Engineering) Q&A session getthe OTN installfest media kit. It contains:

  • Enterprise Linux 5 U4 32 & 64 bit
  • Oracle 11g R2 Database 32 & 64 bit
  • Fusion Middleware DVD for Linux
  • SQL Developer
  • APEX
  • Oracle VM (2.1.5)

And much more…
The event is 7:30-9:30 Yerba Buena Theatre, left of OTN tent on Howard Street.

Get there early to get your free stuff… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

New Disaster Recovery Blog (Dbvisit)…

While I was in Chile at the CLOUG event I met Arjen and Bertie from Avisit Solutions Limited, who produce an alternative to Oracle Data Guard called Dbvisit. Unlike Data Guard, you can use Dbvisit with Standard Edition, so it can be a real money saver.

The company have started a new blog, so if you have an interest in disaster recovery (and if you don’t, you should) you might want to keep your eye on it.

Cheers

Tim…

VMware ESX Server 4.0 Released…

I guess the Oracle-Sun news makes everything else seem pretty small scale, so the launch of VMware ESX Server 4.0 will probably go largely unnoticed.

I’ve used many of the VMware offerings (Workstation, Server, GSX Server, ESX Server, ESXi, Intrastructure etc.) and seen the demos of the advanced features and they are impressive, but I have to keep asking myself, what do the majority of people actually want out of virtualization? The answer always seems to be “basic virtualization”. I love all the management tools and extra features VMware offer, but do I need them at the staggering price they cost? No. Actually, all the functionality I need comes in the VMware ESXi hypervisor product. It’s a free bare-metal hypervisor that does the job and everything else is just bells and whistles. So if I were going the VMware route I would take the free option and use ESXi. 🙂

Of course, there is another option. Without trying to sound like an Oracle fanboy (which I am), I can’t imagine running production virtualization with any product other than Oracle VM. Why? Because it does the job it’s meant to do (bare-metal virtualization) and it’s free. In that sense it is neck-and-neck with VMware ESXi. If you are planning to run Oracle software on your vurtual machines the support issue is much clearer on Oracle VM than ESXi, so the decision is really a no-brainer.

I’m sure there are companies that will need the additional functionality the VMware product set offer, but for many the latest iteration of the VMware products will be feature-creep gone too far. It will be interesting to see how this latest release pans out for them.

Cheers

Tim…

CLOUG – Final Thoughts…

So I’m back home and I have to adjust to normal life again. The CLOUG event was great fun and I hope to visit Chile again soon.

A big thank you to all those involved and all the attendees for turning up. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…