IDEAS Insights

Oracle Systems Strategy Remains Steady, Focus Turns to Execution

Several IDEAS analysts attended Oracle Industry Analyst World 2012 at its campus in Redwood City, CA a few weeks ago. At this annual event, Oracle provided an update on its strategy to maximize the value that can be gained from integrating its hardware and software assets into complete solutions. The event focused primarily on Oracle’s customer momentum, as well as a review of some hardware and software announcements made since last year’s analyst conference. Oracle took this opportunity to remind analysts that its strategy feels solid and that it does not need to be tweaked on a yearly basis.

 

The USA 76 America's Cup Class Racing Yacht Used by Oracle Racing 

TPC-DS: A New Decision Support Benchmark (Part 2 of 2)

Part 1 of this series discussed the TPC’s new decision support benchmark, TPC-DS, and pointed out several concerns with the current TPC-H benchmark. Part 2 explores how TPC-DS targets those concerns and how you can use its results.

TPC-DS: A New Decision Support Benchmark (Part 1 of 2)

The Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) just released a new system-level database benchmark. The new benchmark, TPC-DS, fixes technical problems that limited the success of its predecessors, though it’s up to hardware and database management system (DBMS) vendors to start publishing results. Here’s what to expect from the new benchmark and how it might help you choose vendors for your next decision support database purchases.

Symantec Takes Lead in Snapshot Integration with NetBackup

The increasing demand for 24x7 availability of data can wreak havoc on backup operations. Advances in backup software technology have shortened backup windows, but such windows still exist and frequently disrupt host operations by disabling write access to achieve consistency. Snapshots provide a method to avoid consistency and host-disruption issues while delivering superior recovery time and recovery point objectives (RTO and RPO), compared to traditional backup methods. Thus, snapshots are becoming the first line of defense in data protection. With the new Replication Director feature in its popular NetBackup software, Symantec has recognized this trend and stepped up efforts to further integrate snapshots into backup and recovery.

 

Dell’s 12G Servers Are Engineered to Take the Heat

Dell rolled out a new line of 12G servers this week that it claims are more powerful and much easier to manage than previous generations. Like similar announcements from competitors, this announcement focused on Dell’s high-level strategy and capabilities instead of detailing the components inside the boxes. For hardware, Dell is updating virtually all of its two-socket blades, towers, and rack servers with the new architecture. But it is not necessarily the core server hardware that catches our interest; it is all of the extras Dell has wrapped around the hardware. During development of the 12G servers, Dell says it received design input from 7,700 customers in 17 countries and four continents, and 500 evaluation units have been out since October, ensuring that Dell got this one right.

In 2012, Wintel Will Seek to Reestablish Value of PCs

Debate is rising over the question of whether the computing industry has entered its next stage of evolution, in which the dominant method for end users to access applications and services is no longer through PCs, but through mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. The battle for client seats will not just be driven by the debate about the role of tablet PCs versus conventional PCs. It will be fueled by the demand for new classes of tools to help users communicate, analyze, and create content and data. These tools will be optimized for particular classes of devices, based on tablet or PC form factors, which balance user needs with cost, accessibility, usability, and performance.

In 2012, two developments will shift the industry's focus back to the massive established base of Windows + Intel technology in pursuit of innovation for client computing. A new generation of processors, with low energy consumption and outstanding graphics processing capabilities, could help to rejuvenate interest in PCs by underscoring their importance for many critical computing tasks. Also, with Windows 8, Microsoft will finally have a serious contender in its competition with Apple for mobile devices.

Image: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Fundamental Changes Ahead for IT in 2012

IDEAS has identified several major topics that are likely to dominate the attention of IT managers throughout 2012, including the continued rise of cloud computing, the diversification of client devices, and the next stage in the evolution of server designs and storage systems. Some developments will be incremental and fairly predictable; other developments will fundamentally change the course of the industry, as organizations adopt public cloud services for a growing number of workloads, and as users shift from traditional PCs to tablets and other mobile devices for more and more client applications. IDEAS analysts expect the following ten developments to unfold in 2012.

IDEAS Top 10 Predictions for IT Industry in 2012

• User concern will grow about lock-in with public cloud service vendors.
• IT workers will start confronting an acute need to retrain for cloud-computing skills.
• The public cloud business will undergo a shakeout. 
• Some systems vendors will reconsider their client strategies in order to strengthen server positions.
• Rejuvenated PCs will underscore their importance for critical computing tasks.
• Growing use of solid-state drives (SSDs) will start blurring boundaries between server memory caches and storage.
• Simplified and automated storage management will break out in emerging world markets.
• Unified storage will become a requirement for entry-level and midrange customers.
• Systems vendors will step up efforts to differentiate themselves with integrated software stacks.
• Software-defined networking (SDN) will start to get attention.

IBM Is Jumping into Network Virtualization with VMready Switches

As virtualized servers become more prevalent in the datacenter, networking components such as switches must adapt to become more aware of virtualization. Most switches were originally designed for physical networks, in which LAN configurations were more or less static. When a new node was added or an existing node was moved to a new subnet, it often required a network administrator to make manual changes to the network configuration to ensure that requirements such as SLAs and security were maintained. As a result, changes to the network topology needed to be carefully planned in advance. With the rise of virtual infrastructure, in which virtual machines (VMs) migrate frequently from one host to another, it becomes nearly impossible for network administrators to keep up by making manual changes. IBM is now directly addressing this problem with the VMready technology that it acquired with Blade Network Technologies.

With Solaris 11, Oracle Makes Sun’s OS Its Own

In early November, Oracle announced the release of Oracle Solaris 11, a major update to its UNIX operating system (OS). Solaris 11 introduces many new features, and following Oracle's announcement of SPARC T4 systems in September, the update serves as more proof that the company is making significant investments in the Sun server platform that it acquired in 2010. Further, the release of Solaris 11 will put considerable muscle behind Oracle's strategy to deliver a vertically integrated systems architecture that is optimized for the use of its own technology at every level. This announcement is not just of interest to Solaris users. It could strengthen Oracle's value proposition for any users who rely on Oracle software for enterprise computing.

Oracle Unfolds Portfolio of Systems Built from Sun-Seasoned Assets

Systems dominated Oracle’s OpenWorld conference earlier this month. This was the second OpenWorld event since Oracle completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2010, and the first to follow a major hardware product launch under Oracle management, with the launch of SPARC T4 servers in late September. The conference thus represented the first opportunity to get a complete picture of the solutions that Oracle decided to put together from the assets it acquired with Sun.

  source: Oracle

In the competitive posturing that followed Oracle’s announcements at the conference, some confusion has arisen around industry terms that used to have fairly specific definitions, but are now overloaded. In particular, vendors have become increasingly vague in their use of the terms “mainframe” and “commodity.” Both Oracle and its competitors are exploiting this vagueness as they jockey for leadership in the changing systems market.