Oracle Goes Grid

But IT distinguishes its architecture from the utility computing of IBM and Microsoft

Oracle Corp. has announced plans to incorporate grid-computing techniques and standards across its product line in the forthcoming Oracle 10g release. According to Robert Shimp, Oracle vice president of database marketing, "grid computing will be every bit as significant as the Internet" in its importance to information-technology consumers, creating "tremendous opportunities for cost savings and flexibility."

Grid computing has emerged in recent years as a means of harnessing low-cost resources for large-scale computing problems. A number of scientific projects have distributed processing across thousands of otherwise-idle Internet-connected PCs in ad hoc computational grids. Their success has spurred utility-computing initiatives by vendors, including IBM, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems, that would allow resources to be allocated to computing problems on an as-needed basis.

Oracle will include new versions of the company's database and application-server products. According to Shimp, "one of the most difficult challenges is adding scalability, reliability, security, and manageability" when moving to grids of nondedicated hardware. Oracle intends to meet this challenge by folding automated storage management into its software; by allowing hardware vendors' clustering solutions to be replaced by software to be integrated into Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC); and by adding business-policy based workload-management capabilities. Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g will include repository-centered administration of the Oracle grid environment and will automate many routine management functions.

Oracle first released Real Application Clusters in version 9i to allow database processing to be distributed in a shared-disk arrangement across multiple, linked machines. Oracle 9i similarly featured initial versions of Oracle Streams data-communication technology, transportable tablespaces for moving data between databases, and the Oracle Globus Development Kit (OGDK), which enables Oracle resources to be incorporated into grids built with Globus Project technologies from the Global Grid Forum. While 10g will build on these existing technologies, and while Oracle's architectural evolution is in line with industry directions, Robert Shimp recognized that "grid computing will take a few years to roll out into the marketplace. It's three to five or even eight years out." Oracle has, therefore, emphasized that customers will be able to make a gradual transition to grids but that they will find the ability to consolidate technology infrastructure and allocate resources on demand to be compelling.

Oracle makes a point of contrasting its approach to utility computing, which centers on shared-disk clustering of commodity hardware (such as blade servers), with the shared-nothing, federated-database architectures that have been pursued by Oracle's leading rivals, including IBM and Microsoft. Oracle contends that its approach will provide greater manageability in a multimachine environment and greater flexibility in allocating resources to problems than solutions that rely on symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) for scalability. Oracle's focus, like Microsoft's, is on homogeneous operating environments, although Oracle will continue to provide gateways, including Oracle Distributed SQL, to support access to non-Oracle data stores. Oracle does not appear to plan on extending Enterprise Management to cover these diverse, external systems. Early migration to Oracle 10g will, therefore, be of greatest interest to enterprises with seasonal or other fluctuating workloads and Oracle-centered computing environments.

Oracle has declined as of this writing to provide an Oracle 10g release date or pricing.

— Seth Grimes

Contributing editor Seth Grimes consults on database and analytic technologies.

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