Around the Storage Block Blog : Oracle

Oracle to buy Sun - what does it mean?

CalvinZ — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:34:00 GMT

By Calvin Zito

What a bad day to do an announcement just prior to our HP Technology@Work event in Berlin this week! We had a lot of interesting news that went out today but it won't get the attention it should because of the Oracle announcement today. Here's a link to our online press kit where you can read more about our HP LeftHand, BladeSystem Matrix, and the StorageWorks MDS600: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press_kits/2009/convergeeverything2009/index.html.

So what does the announcement today of Oracle's intent to buy Sun mean? My answer is a simple who knows? What I find interesting is all of the speculation that is rampant across the internet. I don't have an opinion yet on what it means because I just don't know what Oracle is trying to achieve beyond what they've said today but I'd like to make a few observations and point you to what's being said:

The presentation that Oracle used on this morning's investor relations call was titled "Oracle Buys Sun". That just seems a bit odd to me. I've been involved in more than a few HP acquisitions and prior to an acquisition closing, we are careful to say that we are announcing our intent to acquire - probably not a big deal but last I heard, the SEC hadn't approved the acquisition yet and neither had Sun and Oracle shareholders. I'm not implying that this all won't happen (what Sun shareholder would say no to this bailout plan) - just seems premature to say that Oracle buys Sun.
I've seen two articles in eWeek, each having a bit different perspective:
- In the first article, Oracle will keep the Sun software business and sell off much of the hardware (though the article says they'll keep the storage business). Oracle wants control of Java and the ability to kill off MySQL. The article went on to say that "the losers in the deal are likely end users who can expect higher prices for software and fewer choices."
- Another eWeek article said that storage and database hardware are key to the deal. Whatever the case, Sun's storage just got a bailout deal from Oracle and better it come from Oracle than the Obama administration. As to whether the GM or Sun bailout is successful, only time will tell.
In a SearchStorage article, John Webster from Illuminata said "People who have been delivering separate pieces are now potential acquisition targets. You could put NetApp and Brocade on that list." Maybe he should put EMC on that list too. I especially wonder what is going on at EMC after Cisco announced their partnership with NetApp within weeks of EMC's claim of "brave new thinking". Also quoted in the article is Brian Babineau from ESG. He said, "EMC and NetApp are going to have to work even harder to convince customers that an integrated application stack isn't the way to go."

I guess we'll have to see how this plays out but what do you think?

Today's LeftHand Networks Announcement

CalvinZ — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:18:00 GMT

Wow - it's been a busy week at StorageWorks and Lee still can't post his own blog so I'll post this for him on today's news that we have signed a definitive agreement to acquire LeftHand Networks, Inc.. Here is Lee's post:

As the dust settles on the announcement of the HP & Oracle Exadata machine, along comes another interesting announcement. HP has signed a definitive agreement to acquire LeftHand Networks (See press release). I'm sure a lot of press and analyst opinion will focus on the benefits to HP of beefing up our iSCSI portfolio or gaining access to some of the strong server and storage virtualization capabilities of the LeftHand Networks solution, or of the opportunity to sell to more mid-market customers with HP storage or even on the channel synergies and worldwide expansion opportunities of the acquisition.

These are all true but what are the customer benefits? An interesting fact is a software solution that builds storage products from industry standard servers. HP Extreme Data Storage System, HP & Oracle Exadata Machine & LeftHand Networks are all very different in their target market, and yet all build from Industry Standard ProLiant and/or BladeSystem components. They all layer on strong SW capabilities that turn industry standard servers into robust storage solutions. LeftHand Networks delivers a very strong software stack featuring Snap & Clone technology, thin provisioning, remote replication and SmartClone capabilities and each of these has considerable customer benefit. LeftHand Networks even offers the capability to run storage services in a virtual machine. Imagine that - building a SAN without having to buy storage hardware. Now that really sounds like a customer benefit!

Lee Johns, Director StorageWorks Marketing

Details on new Oracle Exadata Storage Server by HP

CalvinZ — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:57:00 GMT

I asked Lee Johns, Marketing Director at HP StorageWorks, to give me a bit of details about the Oracle Exadata Storage Server by HP that I mentioned last week in a blog post. We are having a hard time getting Lee into our team blog to post this himself so I'll give you the details of what Lee sent me in his email. Here's what he said:

The HP-Oracle offering is the answer to solving bandwidth problems associated with database queries. According to Larry Ellison, there are two ways to solve this bandwidth problem:

reduce the amount of data that is moving or
create wider pipes for moving the data.

Since industry analysts are citing data growth as doubling every 18 months, option 1 is not the answer. The premise behind Exadata is that it is not just dumb disk drives, but intelligence next to every disk drive that increases the speed of each query and returns query results via the disk drives. Performance that impacts all areas of a data center is the focus for evolving technology. HP and Oracle have figured this out and intend to reach customers through the anticipation of data growth and the innovation of technology that allows customers to meet this growing demand.

The Oracle Exadata Storage Server by HP is a storage grid building block built on a ProLiant DL180-G5 platform. It is a 2U, 2 Socket Intel Quad-core server with 12 large form factor (LFF) 3.5" disk drives for either 3.6 TB or 12 TB (depending on the customers choice of HP disk technology). It is supported as a new revolutionary scalable storage architecture behind a cluster of Oracle 11g RAC database servers. The appliance-like data warehouse solution is a fully configured rack, including eight ProLiant DL360 Oracle 11g RAC database servers and fourteen DL180 Exadata Storage Servers for a total capacity of either 50TB or 168TB in a single 42u rack. All hardware components come preinstalled in an HP rack with a high performance Infiniband fabric and ProCurve network switches. HP's Factory Express integration and global sales/services reach are strong benefits to Oracle's choice of HP as the exclusive hardware provider.

The products will be co-branded with HP and Oracle. Oracle will lead the sales engagement - targeting their top data warehouse customers globally. The expectation is for the HP sales team to engage and provide hardware expertise for the HP technologies. Likewise Oracle will provide first response regarding service engagement and transfer all hardware calls directly to HP's Technology Services organization for resolution.

This gets me to a dirty little secret in the storage industry. Many storage platforms, especially newer implementations are actually build from industry standard servers. What happens when the leader in Industry Standard Servers uses that position to drive new powerful Storage architectures? The HP/Oracle Exadata product is one example. Watch this space. The world of storage is about to get more exciting.

Oracle Exadata Storage Server by HP for data warehousing

CalvinZ — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:42:00 GMT

At Oracle OpenWorld, Larry Ellison announced the new Oracle Exadata Storage Server based exclusively on the HP ProLiant DL180 G5 platform with HP storage technology. I don't know much about this but from what I've read so far, this is pretty cool. HP is the exclusive hardware and integration technology provider for the Oracle Exadata Storage Server. I won't try to summarize what I've read but here are a few things to help you on your way:

Blog by Forrester's James Kobielus titled Oracle Soars Into Petabyte Stratosphere, Puts HP-Powered Grid Storage At The Heart Of Its New High-End DW Appliance
Dana Gardner ZDnet blog titled HP and Oracle team up on ‘data warehouse appliances' that re-architect database-storage landscape
Dana posted another blog entry in which in interviewed my good friend and fellow HP blogger John Santaferraro. You can find that by clicking here.
One more, this time from a reporter; here's a link to a story at eWeek.

I'll get someone that is more knowledgable about this solution to post something in the next few days.