Ellison says Oracle's 'whole business' to run on Linux

IDG News Service - Oracle Corp. is about to replace three Unix servers that run the bulk of its business applications with a cluster of Intel Corp. servers running Linux, Oracle Chairman and CEO Larry Ellison said yesterday.

He also predicted the "inevitable" demise of large server systems, exposing a potential conflict of interest with longtime ally Sun Microsystems Inc.

The Oracle chief made his comments while touting the benefits of Oracle's clustering technology to an audience of financial analysts in Redwood Shores, Calif. Clustering allows customers to run applications or a database across a group of relatively low-cost Intel servers, with the goal of reducing costs and boosting reliability.

Instead of upgrading three of its older Hewlett-Packard Co. Unix servers, Oracle will move its application server and business software to Linux-based Intel machines later this year, Ellison said. "We'll be on Linux no later than the summer, so we'll be running our whole business on Linux," he said.

It wasn't clear which applications would be moved to Linux, but the Oracle chief portrayed it as a significant step. He said he favors Intel servers because they're cheap and can be easily replaced, and he picked Linux over Microsoft Corp.'s Windows because Linux is "much safer if you're on the Internet." Ellison is a longtime Microsoft foe.

Oracle will also work closely with Linux provider Red Hat Inc. in Research Triangle Park, N.C., to offer customers preconfigured servers loaded with Oracle's application server, Ellison said. "You'll see us taking full support responsibility for Linux," he said. "If you're running the app server and something goes wrong, call us and we'll come and fix it."

Promoting smaller Intel-based servers would appear to put Oracle at odds with Sun, which makes powerful servers based on its Solaris version of Unix. Both Intel and Microsoft have worked hard to boost the performance of their products in a bid to move up the food chain and compete in Sun's more profitable, higher-end market.

Asked by an analyst what the growth of Intel-based servers could mean for Unix vendors like Sun, Ellison seemed to lose his stride for a moment.

"Things will move slowly," he said, adding that many customers aren't convinced yet that clustering even works. "It will be several years before the big machine dies, but inevitably, the big machine will die."

An appropriate setup for some businesses might be to use midrange servers for the database and smaller servers for their applications, he said. However, "in a couple of years, it's not inconceivable that we could