WHITE PAPER HP Integrity Servers Running Oracle Database on Linux

Transcription

1 WHITE PAPER HP Integrity Servers Running Oracle Database on Linux Sponsored by: HP Jean S. Bozman Carl W. Olofson May 2009 Al Gillen EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Global Headquarters: 5 Speen Street Framingham, MA USA P F Linux servers are increasingly being used to support Oracle Database workloads on a worldwide basis. Oracle Corp. is sustaining this trend by paying strong attention to supporting the Linux operating environment and open source software stacks with its Oracle Database products. Oracle develops Oracle Database products on Linux and Windows platforms and then ships production code on Linux servers early in the rollout of those products. Given the importance of Oracle Database workloads on Linux servers, HP is supporting these workloads with its HP Integrity servers, which are based on Intel Itanium processors and which run Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). HP Integrity systems support scalable workloads with their large cache size, support for large memory and I/O, and a range of hardware and software features that ensure high availability for database workloads and the applications that access those databases. All of these attributes are important to missioncritical Oracle Database workloads supporting important business processes and ensuring business continuity. HP and Oracle have long been partners in supporting Oracle Databases on HP server systems. HP Integrity servers support technical and commercial workloads, and these workloads can be "scaled up" on a single server system or clustered together to support scale-out deployments. This support for customer choice is typical of HP's approach to run a wide spectrum of enterprise workloads on its systems. The combination of HP Integrity servers and Oracle Database provides a platform for flexible deployments supporting business agility, even as it supports business continuity for ongoing business operations. INTRODUCTION Today's datacenter bears little resemblance to the datacenter of ten, or even five, years ago. Taking the place of midrange and high-end enterprise servers are rows of rack-optimized and blade server systems, a process that began during the economic downturn of , when volume servers that is, servers priced less than $25,000 became the chief growth drivers for the worldwide server market in terms of both revenue and unit shipments. As a result, many enterprises have deployed dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of volume servers in their datacenters, which in turn has led to increased operational costs associated with items such as IT staff time and power and cooling. To reduce these operational costs, many IT organizations are now consolidating workloads onto fewer volume servers, onto bladed server chassis, or onto scalable midrange

2 enterprise servers. Combined with virtualization and automated provisioning, server consolidation is helping enterprises not only to reduce operational costs but also to manage their servers more efficiently. Emergence of Linux Linux servers are playing a strong role in the IT transformation process. The worldwide Linux server marketplace grew significantly from $2.9 billion in 2003 to $7.3 billion in 2008, which represents a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20%. Within the overall Linux server market, Linux/Itanium server revenue accounted for a total of $2.4 billion from 2003 through the end of As the deployment of enterprise workloads on these Linux servers increases, so does the need to provide scaling mechanisms for these workloads as well as the need to protect them with reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features; security; and advanced management software. IDC expects this trend to bring more growth to the Linux/Itanium segment of the worldwide Linux server market because the attributes of Itanium were designed to support enterprise workloads. In the early days of Linux adoption, many of the workloads Linux supported were in the IT infrastructure and Web infrastructure categories. Today, a wide range of enterprise workloads, including business processing (e.g., OLTP and line-of-business [LOB] applications, including ERP), decision support (e.g., database-oriented workloads and business intelligence [BI]), and collaborative workloads (e.g., and groupware), are running on Linux servers. This adoption has occurred because the Linux software ecosystem is maturing, providing a wider range of ISV applications in the enterprise/commercial market space. As a result, business continuity (including highavailability components and disaster recovery planning) and ongoing support for business processes are both critical features that must be incorporated into enterprise Linux server environments. As the process of IT transformation continues, organizations must find ways to "map" the workloads within their changing infrastructure that need the most capacity, reliability, availability, and security. This mapping process reveals which servers will be the most scalable resources for Linux enterprise workloads and which will need the highest degree of availability for important business applications and data. DATABASE WORKLOADS ON LINUX In a multi-tier computing infrastructure, databases hold a special place. Often located in the data tier (as opposed to the application tier or the client access tier), databases represent the points in the network where updates can be applied from the application and client access tiers, and an outage at the data tier can bring the entire system to a halt. IDC's Workloads research confirms that databases are being used to store business transaction data for business processing workloads such as OLTP, decision support for ERP and CRM, and business intelligence. Therefore, provisions for availability, security, and optimization of performance are all important considerations for the support of database workloads, especially for those that support end-to-end applications that span the enterprise. 2 # IDC

3 Due to their ubiquity, database workloads are already important in sites where Linux is chosen as the preferred operating system; however, not all Linux platforms are inherently scalable, nor are they all outfitted with the hardware-based RAS features and high-availability software that are desirable to ensure continued access to information stored in databases. Therefore, customers must carefully consider the needs of the application workloads that they plan to deploy on Linux servers and take steps to ensure that all reliability and availability characteristics will be present when mission-critical workloads are deployed. Figure 1 shows the revenue generated worldwide by a range of workloads for Linux servers in 2006 and 2007, as reported by IDC's annual Workloads study of more than 1,000 IT managers. This customer-based data, capturing how these IT managers used their installed servers, shows that business processing (e.g., OLTP and ERP) remains the largest workload deployed on Linux servers. However, in 2007, decision support (e.g., data analysis/data mining and data warehouse/data mart) increased in importance year over year for Linux servers, surpassing IT infrastructure (e.g., network protocol support, file/print) as the second largest workload deployed on Linux servers. This underscores the increasing role of Linux on Itanium servers in supporting enterprise workloads. These trends in the data are evident across company size and across vertical market segments. Some of these workloads are highly scalable, supporting four to eight processor sockets or more on selected large servers. Others are smaller in size, but provide important "persistent data-store support" for Web-enabled workloads. FIGURE 1 Worldwide Revenue of Itanium-Based Servers Running Linux by Workload Type, 2006 and 2007 Business processing Decision support Collaborative Application development IT infrastructure Web infrastructure Technical Other ($M) Source: IDC's Server Workloads research, 2007 and IDC #

4 Oracle Database on Linux Oracle's database and middleware products such as Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Application Server are available across a range of Linux distributions, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and others. Aided by this support, the Oracle technology platform can run a range of Linux applications and workloads across the enterprise, often in multi-tier deployments. IDC notes that Linux accounts for a large and growing percentage of all Oracle Database deployments. Oracle reports that Linux is its fastest-growing platform, with nearly 30% of its database products shipped on Linux platforms. Further, IDC data shows that Oracle accounted for 67% of the Linux RDBMS market in 2007 and that Oracle's presence on Linux platforms grew 30% from the prior year. In fact, Oracle develops new products on Linux and Windows platforms and then ports them from Linux to other operating environments, underscoring the importance of the Linux computing world to Oracle. For example, more than 9,000 developers develop key Oracle products such as Oracle Database, WebLogic Application Server, and E-Business Suite using Linux and Windows as their base development platforms. In addition, Oracle is providing database tools and software development tools for the Linux operating environment with Oracle Database. Drivers for Adoption of Oracle Database on Linux A number of factors lead customers to choose to use Oracle Database products on Linux. Some customers have run Oracle on a variety of server platforms in the past, and they are now moving some of their database workloads to Linux platforms. Others have deployed Linux in the enterprise, and they have been running Oracle Databases for some time. Following is a list of drivers for the deployment of Oracle Database products on Linux server platforms: Open source policy. Some organizations have a policy to deploy platforms supporting open source programming within IT organizations. This policy is driven by the ability to reduce development costs and the ability to add code to open source software stacks in a collaborative style, without waiting for the next round of commercial releases. Systems cost reduction. Many users choose Linux because it enables them to use a Unix-like environment to run non-critical workloads on low-cost server systems that are less expensive than midrange or high-end Unix/RISC systems that have often been deployed to run mission-critical workloads with high levels of availability and reliability. By leveraging Oracle Database's built-in availability features, scale-out deployments of Oracle Databases on Linux servers can take on some of the workloads that formerly ran only on scalable Unix servers. Standardization of IT infrastructure. Many enterprises have complex, heterogeneous infrastructures brought about by successive waves of IT purchasing decisions as well as by corporate mergers and acquisitions activity. Introducing Linux servers provides these enterprises with the opportunity to standardize large portions of their IT infrastructures, reducing the complexity and cost of server management. 4 # IDC

5 Linux flexibility. Very sophisticated users, such as online service providers and large IT organizations, like the ability to modify and optimize the Linux kernel as part of the open source model for software use. This is especially useful when tuning and optimizing performance of Linux-based workloads running on Linux distributions and associated middleware (e.g., the Linux software stack). Most users, however, rely upon off-the-shelf Linux distributions supported by such providers as HP or a commercial Linux distribution vendor rather than modifying the operating system code. License cost reduction. Consolidating on Linux provides the opportunity to reduce license costs for Oracle Database deployments, with fewer copies, or instances, of Oracle Database running on fewer, more scalable servers. Hardware Choices for Oracle Databases Running on Linux Customers have a wide range of hardware platforms from which to choose when they run their Oracle Database on a Linux software stack (e.g., Linux, Linux applications, and open source software), including x86, EPIC (Itanium-based), RISC, and even mainframe platforms. The fact that Linux runs on this wide range of platforms is one of the attributes that makes it attractive to IT managers within large organizations. IDC supply-side shipment data shows that Linux Itanium servers are being shipped in a variety of form factors, by a variety of vendors, on a worldwide basis. This demonstrates their utility to customers and their expanding presence in the datacenter, in IT infrastructure, and in corporate networks. Customer evaluations of servers to support database workloads typically center on a number of characteristics, including: Performance and capacity scaling. This includes such characteristics as processor capacity, memory capacity, and I/O capacity for a given server, along with that server's ability to support both scale-out and scale-up deployments, as needed, to support the customer workload. Servers with larger cache sizes can support larger data sets than earlier generations of servers, and these large cache sizes are important in supporting the fully 64-bit capabilities of the Oracle Database. Server support for large amounts of I/O. Database workloads are often I/Ointensive, which is why strong support for I/O throughput helps make database processing faster and more efficient, reducing overall processing times for given database tasks. High-availability features. This includes hardware RAS features and software clustering and availability software (CLAS) to address customer availability requirements and to meet business SLAs. RAS features are often provided by processor error-correcting code (ECC), chipsets that regulate system bandwidth and throughput, and support for on-chip security. Total cost of solution. This includes the cost of hardware acquisition, software acquisition, deployment, and ongoing operation and maintenance of the entire solution IDC #

6 Scale Up and Scale Out It is in the nature of databases to grow over time, and the use of scalable servers ensures that there will be additional capacity for future database growth and ensures that no other workloads will interfere with the performance of the hosted database engine. Customers need to decide whether they will "scale up" their Oracle Database image (or instance), meaning to deploy additional compute resources to support one Oracle Database image in a single server cabinet, or "scale out," meaning to deploy additional server resources by connecting additional Linux/Integrity servers in an enterprise cluster using products such as Oracle RAC. IDC research shows that most large organizations deploy a combination of scale-up and scale-out server configurations, with IT departments making different decisions based in part on varying IT skill sets and preferences. IDC research also shows that many companies are likely to deploy scale-up configurations in critical areas of their corporate networks while using scale-out configurations for divisible workloads such as Web hosting or . Enterprises with tiered server architectures tend to favor scalable servers in the data tier and modular servers in the Web-serving tier. However, IDC research found that as clustering and scale-out technologies have gained functionality in recent years, customers increasingly have the option to deploy workloads in scale-up or scale-out configurations. Furthermore, scalable servers themselves can be clustered together, whether in central-site datacenters or within business units. In this way, the individual server nodes within scale-out clusters can be scalable SMP servers. Therefore, clustering and scalable servers are not incompatible; rather, scalable servers represent an important building block of IT infrastructure that can be deployed in a variety of ways throughout the datacenter and the corporate network. Many end users choose to scale up to provide improved application performance by adding capacity within the same instance of the server operating system. These customers prefer to deploy databases on servers that are dedicated to running the database workload scaling the workload by taking advantage of the on-board resources of scalable servers. By investing in Integrity servers with more than two processor sockets, customers have the option of populating additional sockets, as needed, when the database grows and demand for processing power increases. Other customers choose to deploy scale-out architectures linking multiple volume servers or midrange servers into a single Linux cluster using Oracle RAC to connect server nodes that can host Oracle Database instances across a cluster, allowing IT sites to add server nodes to the cluster as computing demands grow. These customers choose to house and to manage those systems inside a configuration of rack-optimized servers or blade servers, using Oracle tools to automate management of the entire RAC deployment. 6 # IDC

7 Growing Server Resources to Meet Changing Application Requirements Whether a scale-up or scale-out scenario is used, the size of the hardware server itself and the amount of memory and resources that can be applied to the database workload can be scaled up as needed so that individual server "nodes" can be scalable. This allows customers to consolidate smaller Oracle Databases that have been running in their environment onto a single, more scalable Oracle Database on a more scalable Integrity server node. Scale-up and scale-out approaches provide customers with options for deploying Oracle Databases on Linux servers. In scale-out scenarios, multiple rack-optimized servers may be clustered together or multiple Itanium-based blades may be linked into a scale-out database resource. In scale-up scenarios, more scalable servers can host large corporate databases on a single, dedicated machine, giving it full access to all the computing resources on that server system. Key Features of HP Integrity Servers A Portfolio of Servers to Satisfy a Range of Workload Requirements HP's line of Integrity servers includes models in the volume, midrange enterprise, and high-end enterprise server classes. Volume servers include the rx2660 and rx6600 models, which are often deployed to support Oracle Databases, and Integrity blade servers shipping within the HP BladeSystem chassis support Oracle Database, especially for Web-enabled workloads. For larger, more scalable workloads, midrange enterprise and high-end enterprise HP Integrity server models can be deployed, supporting larger numbers of end users and larger single-system-image (SSI) databases with as much as 100TB or more of data stored within those databases. Midrange enterprise models include eight-socket servers each with dual-core Intel Itanium processors (the rx7600 series) and 16 processor sockets (the rx8600 series), while high-end enterprise servers such as the Superdome server models have 16 to 64 sockets, each supporting dual-core Itanium processors. Because each socket can house a dual-core Itanium Series 9000 processor, the total number of processor cores can range up to 128 cores in top-ofthe-line Superdome models and 2TB of directly addressable memory for a large Oracle Database. Support for Enterprise-Scale Workloads One of the top drivers for selection of scalable servers is the ability of these servers to support large database instances (also known as single system images) required for enterprise-scale workloads. This capability allows end users, including those accessing data analysis applications, to access a single instance of corporate data. Because all scalable servers now support 64-bit addressing and include multiple terabytes (TB) of attached storage, these systems can work with very large data sets and can support searches of extremely large databases. Pay per Use for HP Integrity Servers Running Linux HP announced a pay-per-use model for Linux on Integrity servers in August This model allows customers to pay for server capacity based on actual usage, 2009 IDC #

8 allowing them to "dial up and dial down" the usage and associated payments as business needs require. Usage is determined using HP Utility Pricing Solutions (UPS) metering software. Support for pay per use is gaining in importance as organizations try to match IT infrastructure more closely to changing business needs. So, seasonality, time of day, time of quarter, and peak demands associated with specific industries can all lead to a surge in demand, resulting in peaks and valleys of usage. HP's support for pay per use allows customers to pay for computing as they use it and to reduce capital expenditure costs when that additional capacity is no longer needed. HP virtualization technology allows capacity to be added through the use of Integrity Virtual Machines (Integrity VMs). In scalable servers, capacity is built into the system itself and can be activated as needed. In the case of HP Integrity servers supporting Linux, the Integrity VM feature of HP's Virtual Server Environment (VSE) is another option that can be used to supply additional capacity to Linux instances or to add more Linux instances to the system. Electrical Isolation Multiple electrically isolated partitions can be used to consolidate workloads, including workloads running under separate operating systems. To address the need for scalable and highly available servers to support enterprise workloads, HP offers a range of Integrity servers that feature dual-core Intel Itanium processors and scale from two-socket servers to 64-socket systems. In addition, midrange and high-end Integrity servers use a cellular hardware design that improves scalability while allowing for hardware partitioning and the electrical isolation of workloads. Each cell contains four sockets, maintaining electrical isolation between cells, and multiple cells are combined to build a scalable midrange or high-end Integrity system. All HP Integrity servers support multiple operating systems, including HP-UX 11i, Microsoft Windows Server, Linux distributions, and HP OpenVMS. This allows IT managers to gather mission-critical workloads that had been running on dedicated servers across the network, consolidating them on a scalable server that provides higher RAS and security than the individual server nodes that formerly supported the same workloads. Customers have a choice of when and where to deploy Linux on Integrity servers within their IT infrastructure. The reasons that users are increasingly selecting Linux to support database workloads can vary from site to site, but certainly familiarity with Linux programming and Linux system administration models is often a key factor in determining a move to Linux platforms for database workloads, as is adoption of Linux and open source software stacks. RAS Features for Reliability and Availability Importantly, RAS features hardware features that ensure reliability and availability are built into both the Integrity server platform and the Itanium processor, creating an optimized platform to support scalable deployments of Oracle Database running on Linux, with access to multiple terabytes (TB) of data. HP provides an array of server technologies that deliver RAS, scalability, and security in scale-up computers. These technologies include the following: 8 # IDC

9 HP Integrity chipsets, including the zx2 and sx2000 chipsets. Housed on the motherboards along with the Itanium processors, HP's innovative zx2 and sx2000 chipsets support and protect database workloads. Both chipsets provide additional functionality to ensure data integrity. Features include double-chip spare memory protection, ECC and parity protection, a hardware memory scrubber, and PCI bus fault isolation. Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing (EPIC) architecture supports scaling of workloads. The Itanium processor's EPIC architecture provides high levels of instruction parallelism, large caches, and massive processor execution resources. It expedites scaling for database workloads that are expanding to support more users. For SQL-based query workloads for relational databases, additional users can be supported by additional threads that are processed in parallel on Itanium processors. RAS features for high availability. Itanium processors were designed to deliver mainframe-class levels of availability through the incorporation of extensive RAS capabilities. Itanium processors trap soft errors, such as a transistor state change that can be triggered by an alpha particle or cosmic radiation passing through the processor, which can cause incorrect results if ECC is not applied. Itanium processors also trap hard errors, such as a failed memory bit, line, or device. When RAS features are used in combination with the HP Integrity server platform, other layers of high-availability safeguards are provided, including partition-based isolation of workloads, system-based memory management, and workload balancing. Features of Itanium-Based Integrity Servers That Support Database Workloads One of the key "scale-up" rationales underlying the use of Itanium servers with Oracle Databases has to do with mixed workloads rather than dedicated workloads. While Oracle provides the means of managing dedicated workloads with low-cost x86 server hardware and "scale-out" approaches, IDC believes that mixed workload approaches can be effectively supported by Itanium-based servers, such as HP Integrity servers, which ensure high levels of reliability and availability through the presence of built-in hardware RAS, error-correcting features, and large cache sizes. Key design features of the Itanium processor include inherent parallelism in the processor design, large on-chip caching of large data sets, large amounts of directly addressable memory, and multi-core capabilities. Itanium features designed to support enterprise workloads such as scalable databases include the following: Large processor caches with Intel Cache Safe. The large, low-latency, highbandwidth caches on Itanium processors enable more data to be staged closer to the CPU for processing, thus accelerating system performance and system throughput. Intel Cache Safe protects these caches from errors, ensuring the integrity and high availability of mission-critical data IDC #

10 Enhanced Machine Check Architecture (EMCA). Itanium processors use EMCA, with well-defined interfaces for error handling at the hardware, firmware, and operating system levels. EMCA enables efficient coordination throughout the server, with appropriate handoffs to escalate corrective action as needed and to initiate reporting functions. EMCA reduces the likelihood of data corruption, and it virtually eliminates the chances of a server "hang-up" because EMCA functions can automatically reset the server system in response to an otherwise fatal error. 64-bit addressing combined with support for large memory features. The Itanium processor supports not only 64-bit operating systems, such as 64-bit Linux, but also 64-bit workloads. When databases are run in a 64-bit environment, they can directly address multiple terabytes (TB) of data, which greatly accelerates database processing compared with database workloads running in 32-bit mode. To support this powerful 64-bit addressing capability, HP is supporting large memory features in which to store large data sets being processed by the database management system. HP Integrity servers are designed to support large memory and I/O capacity. For example, HP's twosocket Integrity rx3600 server supports 192GB, while its four-socket Integrity rx6600 server supports up to 384GB of memory capacity and its Integrity Superdome server supports up to 2TB of memory. Enterprise Scenarios for Deployment Application workloads can be deployed by using a variety of server deployment scenarios, ranging from single-tier deployments in which both the database and the application reside on clustered or standalone servers to tiered deployments in which the database and the application reside on separate, scalable server arrays. Multi-tier deployments facilitate a mix-and-match approach to applying workloads to hardware platforms. Specifically, some customers choose to deploy in a "split-tier" configuration, in which applications run in the application tier (often on rack-optimized servers or bladed systems) and scalable databases run in the database tier (often on clustered or standalone, scalable servers). IDC also notes that Integrity blades are being deployed to take on workloads that formerly ran on RISC processors, provided that the workloads can be consolidated onto a single blade. Scenarios for enterprise Oracle Database products on Linux deployment include the following: Scalable midrange enterprise systems. In this case, Oracle Database products are deployed on midrange enterprise HP Integrity servers, each having four sockets or more. Because each socket houses a dual-core processor, scaleup in this scenario provides plenty of compute resources for a growing database workload. Scale-out deployment of scalable server nodes. Multiple midrange enterprise HP Integrity servers can be clustered together using Oracle RAC to add more server nodes to support a scale-out deployment. In some cases, two Oracle RAC clusters can be linked via a "heartbeat" to achieve a geographic cluster, further enhancing high availability in case one site experiences disruptions or outages. 10 # IDC

11 Mixed HP Integrity/ProLiant servers in multi-tier deployments. Tiered workloads can use Integrity servers in the database tier (whether scale-up on scalable Integrity servers or scale-out on volume or blade chassis servers) and x86-based ProLiant servers in the application tier. This approach enables enterprises to take advantage of the low cost of the x86-based servers combined with the scalable performance and high availability of Itanium-based Integrity servers for the enterprise database, all running a common Linux operating platform. Blade chassis deployment. Itanium-based Integrity blade servers can be interspersed with other types of blades within an HP BladeSystem c-class enclosure, including both Intel Xeon-based and AMD Opteron-based x86 server blades in the same chassis. In this scenario, multiple blades running existing applications can tap into the Integrity blades supporting the Oracle Database and the entire group of blades can be managed together to reduce overall operational costs. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES Customers benefit greatly from the ability to choose from among different vendors' offerings when building out their IT infrastructure. This freedom of choice is further expanded when evaluating systems to support open platforms such as Linux. As a result, IT organizations can constantly review platform decisions; perform new evaluations, pilots, and testing; and incorporate new technologies into new waves of projects across the corporation. This means that companies such as HP and Oracle need to constantly optimize their product and services offerings as they compete with other systems vendors and other database vendors. While the innovation cycle creates challenges for IT vendors, it provides benefits to customers by driving continuous performance increases while keeping prices competitive. All system vendors and database vendors face additional unknowns, including potential shifts in how technology will be acquired in years to come. For example, in the future, customers will be able to obtain server processing through a variety of approaches: acquisition (purchase or lease), the use of hosted services provided by third-party companies, or pay-as-you-go software services (e.g., software as a service, or SaaS). Licensing models may also change over time, with new models such as per-employee, per-use, or per-site pricing emerging as alternatives to today's per-processor or per-server pricing. IDC notes that some customers elect to negotiate a site license that pays for all of the Oracle Databases running within the enterprise, on an annual basis. Further, for some sites, consideration of these new acquisition approaches may also affect, or lengthen, the customer decision-making process in unpredictable ways. CONCLUSION Oracle Database workloads are often deployed on Linux servers, and HP Integrity servers are robust, scalable platforms on which to deploy software stacks including the Oracle Database, Linux operating environments, and associated open source 2009 IDC #

12 software. Using Integrity servers, customers can choose to scale up or scale out, or both, depending on the size of the database instance and on the performance characteristics required to support their particular business applications. The HP Integrity platform has a number of technical features that support scalable Oracle Database deployments on Linux. These features include built-in security, high bandwidth, low-latency access to large memory and large amounts of I/O, and Intel Cache Safe and EMCA, which are designed to protect the workloads themselves from system outages caused by the failure of hardware or software components. Looking forward, IDC expects the market for Linux servers to grow, with companies hosting an increasingly broad range of workloads for both technical and commercial/enterprise applications on Linux servers. As this happens, HP Integrity servers running Linux will be considered and evaluated as platforms on which to deploy demanding Oracle Database workloads. Customers who have selected Oracle Database products and Linux as their software stack for a given workload or application will have access to a range of deployment options on HP Integrity platforms, including shipment in a variety of form factors: standalone, rack-optimized, and blade servers. Based on their technical specifications and performance characteristics, HP Integrity servers are well positioned to compete in the growing Linux server marketplace. Copyright Notice External Publication of IDC Information and Data Any IDC information that is to be used in advertising, press releases, or promotional materials requires prior written approval from the appropriate IDC Vice President or Country Manager. A draft of the proposed document should accompany any such request. IDC reserves the right to deny approval of external usage for any reason. Copyright 2009 IDC. Reproduction without written permission is completely forbidden. 12 # IDC