[GLLUG] Which distribution for Oracle server?

Dan Nguyen nguyend7 at msu.edu
Sun Aug 31 22:42:30 EDT 2003


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <imetis at imetis.com>
To: <linux-user at egr.msu.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 2:11 PM
Subject: [GLLUG] Which distribution for Oracle server?

> My organization will soon be upgrading our Oracle servers 
> (currently 8i on NT 4), and I have convinced them that Linux 
> is the way to go for the new OS. I'm currently researching 
> which distribution would be the best. These servers(we will 
> have 3: dev, production, web) will be dedicated to hosting 
> Oracle 9i. The hardware will be Compaq ProLiant DL360
> servers, with data being stored to an IBM Tivoli SAN.

I won't make any comments about Oracle, or the ProLiant. heh.

> Oracle certifies and supports Red Hat Enterprise, and UnitedLinux 
> (Conectiva, SCO, SuSE, TurboLinux).  I've not been thrilled with 
> Red Hat, and have not personally used any of the UnitedLinux 
> versions. From the things I've read so far, I'm leaning towards 
> SuSE. I'm installing that on another box as I type, to get a first 
> hand look.

I have used RHEL AS 2.1 (formerally RHAS 2.1).  It's basically just
RH 7.2 with a few additional packages.  RHEL AS 3.0 is scheduled to 
be release soon.  

I have also used SLES 8, which is UL 1.0 based.  UL 1.0 is loosely
based on SuSE.  With SLES, the support administrative program is YaST2
(I read somewhere that SCO's UL 1.0 based OpenLinux Server had admins 
use webmin).  I had some issues with SLES 8, one of their perl xml 
related packages actually work.  It depended on a module (which was part
of the same source package) which wasn't in an rpm.  Other then that,
SLES was pretty much like standard SuSE in use.
 
> What are your experiences with these distros? Has anyone used a SAN 
> with Linux? If so, was there anything weird I should know about? 
> I've been running Linux at home, in several flavors, for about 6 
> years, but this will be my first production enterprise level project.
> I'm sure I'll be back with more questions & updates along the way.

I don't really know why anyone would run either RHEL or SLES if given a 
choice.  However, since you will probably want to run on a supported
platform, and willing to pay the large sums of money to both Oracle,
HP, and Red Hat or SuSE (or TurboLinux or Connectiva), you should choose
the one you hate the least.  



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