Oracle Linux Reviews

Our organization uses mostly Oracle engineered systems and appliances such as Oracle Exadata, PCA Private Cloud Appliance, Oracle Database Appliance, etc. Anything that is an engineering solution from Oracle, essentially. We also use Oracle Virtualization, OVM. These are on Linux.

Ksplice is the solution's most valuable aspect. Basically, what that allows us to do, is it allows us to patch and update the Kernel without a reboot. To me, that is the most outstanding feature of Oracle Linux.

The pricing is quite good.

The stability is excellent and the initial setup is easy.

Oracle Linux is downstream from Red Hat Linux. This solution has the same pain points. I would probably mention that fleet deployment and management could be improved. 

It would be ideal if they added a faster implementation of the security fixes, if possible.

I've been using the solution since 2010.

The solution is extremely stable. There aren't issues with bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

In terms of adding on features, it's pretty scalable. It's similar to Red due to the fact that it is pretty much adjusted downstream from RHEL.

We have between 50-100 users on the solution at any given time.

I've used support in the past. I'd say it's pretty typical. It's not extraordinary, It's fine.

We switched from Red Hat Linux. Oftentimes I work with the appliances and Oracle engineering systems on hardware and software, which come from Oracle. 

The deployment was not complex. It was very straightforward. How long deployment takes depends on how many OS instances are being implemented. A single OS instance may take about 30 minutes or less. 

I work at an Oracle partner company and assist clients with their implementation in my role as a consultant.

The licensing cost is fairly small. It's pretty much in line with Red Hat licenses. I cannot recall the actual pricing, however, it's my understanding that it's just a few hundred dollars for a CPU core per year. I would just say it's fairly reasonable and low.

 Oracle Linux subscriptions can actually come free if they're purchased with other products.

We're a partner and reseller of Oracle.

I would recommend the solution, especially for the organizations that could be interested in zero downtime patch-ins. That is what the Oracle Linux case flies provide. I don't think the same feature are available in RHEL.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

I am not an Oracle expert, I'm a database expert. From my standpoint, Oracle Linux is more compatible with the latest open-source software than other operating systems like Ubuntu Linux and CentOS Linux. I have faced a lot of challenges with different operating systems but it turns out that other database packages are not very compatible with different operating systems. They are not very compatible with Arch and Ubuntu Linux; however, Oracle Linux is highly compatible with all of the open-source projects.

I wouldn't say that we had many major challenges with Oracle Linux. I can't say it's the most advanced operating system, but I can definitely say that they patch regularly. We didn't have major challenges with Oracle Linux, to be honest.

I have been using Oracle Linux for more than five years.

I don't think that we had any kind of stability issues. Most of the time, if I remember correctly, we worked with Oracle Linux when it was a part of the private cloud. By private cloud, I mean it was in VM. Being in VM with limited resources, sometimes the software packages would crash, but I don't recall the operating system ever crashing. The issues we experienced were due to the software and filter packages, not the operating system.

Oracle tech support is pretty well organized. They have a long history of offering support for their Oracle packages. It doesn't matter if it's an Oracle database, an Oracle operating system; they give support 24/7, covering every time zone. They have multiple experts available for every issue you could experience. They can always be reached no matter what. They are very well organized with their support.

Oracle Linux is very easy to set up.

Oracle Linux is very much compatible with other platforms. Installing VMs is very easy. If you are installing on a hard metal server, it's still very easy. I installed Oracle Linux myself, I didn't have major challenges with it.

Nowadays, Oracle is very open toward price negotiation; they negotiate well with their clients. 

If you're interested in Oracle Linux, make sure you know the infrastructure of where it's going inside and out. You have to have a clear idea of where exactly your organization is heading in the future, whether private cloud or public cloud. These decisions are not made in seconds, minutes, or even days or weeks. But you have to have a clear idea. For example, if a company wants to use Oracle Linux and they think after two or three years they might be in a hybrid cloud, or maybe a public cloud, they had to make sure they aren't too dependent on the operating system. Whatever software packages they are using should be very compatible with the existing infrastructure like a hybrid or a public cloud.

Picture two containers that are very much independent: you can implement Containerization in Oracle Linux and the same containers can and will work well in both a private cloud or a public cloud infrastructure.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Oracle Linux a rating of eight.

Because nothing is perfect, I wouldn't give any operating system or any other software packages a rating of 10. They have bugs sometimes. For some extra points, they should keep aligned with the ope-source community. Oracle is very loyal to their own customers. If a client is experiencing an issue, they will work with them until it is fully resolved. But what about the open-source community? I think they should also pay more attention to the open-source community. 

• Installing Oracle APEX for testing purposes
• Learning Oracle APEX
• Making some fancy web applications, including forms that load and display images

The main aim of installing Oracle Linux was to test it after years of using CentOS, and  to test Oracle APEX. After one year of testing,  I encountered problems that I was not able to solve: 
I was not able to do rotated backups; upgrading to a newer version of APEX was a nightmare; I could not enter GlassFish admin console; and I could not install SQL Developer. Then I thought that if I bought the cheapest version of Oracle Database I would get the support neccesary to get this know how. Two sales persons contacted me. But they were not interested in solving my doubts. Their only interest was selling me the cloud database, for the fantastic price of (more or less) 1000 euros per year. I explained to them that my alternative was a second hand PC, plus CentOS, plus Postgres, plus Eclipse.  They did not offer me a cheap version of Oracle database. I understoo the message, Oracle, both Linux and database, were not for me.

Ease of development of professional-looking web pages, full of functionality and with secure access.

I decided to purchase Oracle Database. I thought that if I bought the product, I would get support. I asked some easy questions to the sales agent who contacted me. He was more interested in selling me the cloud database than answering my questions. I learned that I am too small for Oracle. I continued with CentOS and Postgres. Google provides me with all the information I need. I could not get all the information I needed from Oracle.

New infrastructure for Oracle databases: deployment of several database environments with no issues and in a faster way.

Speed, simplicity, and performance. Every DBA and OS administrator like the simple fact that one RPM install can be very powerful and can configure all prereqs.

Simplicity and agility to deploy Oracle Database configurations with a single RPM and custom tweaks on Oracle Linux kernel.

Improve performance and integration with new releases without affecting the ability and stability of the system.

We are using the firewall for intrusion prevention, and it has performed well.

It prevents intrusions. It does what it says it will do quite accurately.

It does intrusion protection.

It does not have any reporting on attempted intrusions.

It is perfectly stable; no downtime.

We have scaled it. It is sufficient to meet our needs.

I have not used technical support.

We were not previously using another solution.

The initial setup was a bit complicated, as there are a lot of pieces that you have to look at.

The pricing and licensing are good.

Nobody else was on the shortlist. We chose it because we were using it.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: We look at the characteristics of the vendor, then see if they suit us.

Fujitsu's Oracle/Intel platform has been specifically designed with Oracle in mind using Oracle VM, Oracle Linux, for our customers wanting to use Oracle product, applications, databases. We've designed it in a way that we get the best possible performance from the applications and databases on our engineered system.

What it's allowed us to do, initially, it allowed us to develop an Intel platform specifically for Oracle. What's most important for us, where it comes across is the licensing. It's very difficult - sometimes you can build a platform that is optimal, but when you apply Oracle licenses across that platform, it isn't the most economical. All of our Intel platform for this has been optimized towards which Oracle solutions are going to be running on it, to get both the best performance but also that will be economical for our customers.

Because it's specifically built for Oracle, with Oracle applications and solutions in mind, we have standard pricing, a standard way of working, a standard cost for each organization. That allows us to save time, on both bid and, once new requirements come along for each organization, we know exactly what it takes to add to that solution, to add to that platform. The saving for us is, we can feed back quickly to grow, respond to new requirements.

With Oracle Linux Ksplice specifically, we have organizations looking for minimum downtime. We're able to apply hot-patching at any time; once we've proven they're tested, ready to go, we don't need to take downtime to apply them.

We have a shared services platform with multiple organizations set on it. So planning downtime across all those organizations becomes more and more difficult. The more organizations we get onto the platform, the less "white space" is available. Ksplice allows us to do hot-patching without the downtime. That, for us, is quite key.

Also, the virtualization, Oracle VM, allows us to get the best performance for our Oracle applications and database solutions. We know it's proven to be more performant with Oracle applications, so we get the best performance out of it on our platform.

What we found in moving from Oracle Linux 6 to Oracle Linux 7 was the whole interfacing with the application and the fact that operating had all changed, all the commands had changed. You need to be aware that there is some kind of training, some kind of handover required for your technical guys, understanding different ways of interacting with it. Bear that in mind.

What we experienced is, the stability is key. What we can't take into account with customers is how they're going to want to use the platform, once we've installed it, once we've got different solutions running on that platform.

We have a use case of a shared platform where we have one large organization set on our Intel platform. The virtualization then allows us to grow out for when we get more and more organizations on.

We've just added another huge organization, DHL, they are now set on that shared platform along with another organization. That hasn't impacted it in the least. We are able to scale out and scale with that organization. That organization itself, that specific program, could grow and grow. So it allows us that flexibility to grow that whichever way. If that organization's business case grows and becomes bigger and bigger, the platform can scale out to that.

It also allows us to add in more organizations on the same platform with one overview of managing. For us, as an organization we can manage it from a single point with multiple organizations using it, with no impact on each other.

We don't have any problems with Oracle technical support. Our guys can normally resolve most of the issues themselves, but where we do require further help, we have direct contact with Oracle, and the turnaround is what we'd expect.

There is a gap for the type of Intel platform we're now providing, from an Oracle perspective. For a lot of the platforms we have our own cloud at Fujitsu, our K5, which is not geared towards Oracle specifically, because of the licensing implications. So we knew there was a requirement for a quick, economical, engineered system, so that the customers can either sit in their own datacenters or we'll place it in our datacenters and manage the service that way.

With Oracle VM and Oracle Linux, it then allows us to scale up, scale out as and when the customers want, their requirements grow, their enterprises grow. Or the requirements change over time; it could be an easy path for them to move from on-premise to cloud, or they may want to bring the cloud, themselves, on-premise.

It's the perfect step for them, if they're not quite ready to move to the cloud - they might never want to go to the cloud, but they want to control security, data, data integrity. All the features they're after as an organization - they may want to go one way, they may not want to go the other way. This fits that platform at that point.

For us to work with any vendor, it's the support and ongoing roadmap with that vendor. We need to understand where it's going, where it's going to end up in the next one to two years, as well as then three to four years. We also need to be able to work closely with them to almost guide that roadmap from our experience, and be able to have input into it as well. That is key with any partner and vendor.

The key for us with our engineered systems is specifically how quick and easy it is to "plug in and play," with a solution. We got the platform in place within a couple of weeks and then another week or so to get everything up and running with the virtualizations, and then the Oracle Linux with all the solutions and applications on top of that.

End-to-end it will take us three to five weeks, depending on the install.

We use our in house expertise at Fujitsu.

As per above, pay attention to how Oracle license their products and make sure you are clear as to the implications of choosing products which can have a significant impact on license cost and supportability. 

We were driven to some part by how the cost of licensing of Oracle databases and needed to ensure the most cost effective way to do this, so really OVM was the only option for us .

I am the Oracle practice CTO. I work for Fujitsu. We cover all the aspects of IT, for enterprise, for infrastructure, through to applications and managed services. I work for the Business Applications Services, we cover anything around enterprise solutions, enterprise architecture, anything that will aid them in their business process. In my role at Fujitsu I oversee all of the Oracle architects, so any solution owners from infrastructure to applications, and all the bits in between. All architects and solution owners report to me.

In the context of, if you're wanting to use the Oracle workloads, absolutely, this is the way you need to go. For non-Oracle workloads, again, no problems with that at all. From Fujitsu's point of view, and where it sits on our Intel platform, this is a no-brainer. We specifically built it with Oracle in mind. Therefore, using Oracle VM and Oracle Linux was the way forward.

If that's the way you're going, if you're looking to use Oracle applications, Oracle Databases, I would definitely recommend using the OVM and Oracle Linux.

It performs perfectly for what we require it to do. There are, obviously, certain issues that have been highlighted in the next version. That's not the product itself, that's just the usability of it. We would rate the Oracle OVM, the Oracle Linux, eight to nine out of 10.

Healthcare IT.

Stable Oracle deployments.

Easy Oracle integration: Oracle preinstall packages available on YUM.

Kernel updates.

Fujitsu uses OVM and Oracle Linux extensively with Fujitsu hardware to provide our customers with a certified, scalable, pre-tested platform to run Oracle Applications and technology.

The use of a pre-defined and certified architecture that combines a market leading Fujitsu server architecture along with Oracle's virtualisation technology and Linux operating system, has allowed Fujitsu to reduce the cost and time to create customer bids.

Optimising the use of Oracle licenses on behalf of our customers to get most efficient cost of ownership.

Fujitsu works closely with Oracle's product development team to provide feedback on areas for improvement on behalf of our customers.

In the early days of using the product, Fujitsu had some issues with both the stability and functionality of the product. Oracle was very responsive to this feedback and, as a result, has incorporated many of the ideas that were shared by Fujitsu. The result is a market-leading solution.

No issues with scalability.

Excellent. Oracle also encouraged a direct working relationship with the product development team, which has served to help in getting support.

Work with Fujitsu to learn from our experience. We are able to provide a pre-certified architecture that incorporates the best of both Oracle and Fujitsu technology to provide a highly scalable platform for Oracle workloads.