Feb
12
Sun + Oracle
So it’s been official for a little more then a week and the whole Sun site has already changed over. I will admit some of the pages are much better now then they were but then some are more confusing and difficult to navigate. I especially like how the forums have changed tho, no loss of data and much easier to use. I’ll also admit I like how everything is very uniform now, before I was often bothered about being asked to login in multiple times as I go between sections. But it’s to be expected with any merger.
To me the good news was around the Sun + Oracle line up and the idea of a Complete Solution. I was very worried through this whole process that this could be the end of the Sun hardware line and the SPARC processor. I know it may not be the best processor on the market but there is something great about it, especially the UltraSPARC T-series processors and there overloaded execution lines and built in para-virtualization layer.
On the software front I’m curious to see how this affects the future of OpenSolaris and other Sun projects. I feel many will be kept on, but I feel like this could be the end for some like Darkstar and Glassfish. I’m especially curious about the fate of xVM server since Oracle already has Oracle VM which is based on Oracle’s Linux and Xen. I personally feel that they should go with the xVM Server stack since it’s based on the Solaris kernel and I know that in the last year a lot of work has been put into reconstructing the Solaris kernel to include virtualization technology around memory and networking. I also feel, even tho I love Linux, the Solaris kernel is better suited for the enterprise and will bring more to the table then the Linux kernel especially with how well the Solaris kernel handles SMT.
Well only time will tell, I’m looking forward to the ”Oracle + Sun Transforming the Industry” event coming up in March. The ball is most definitely in Oracle’s court and I feel like Oracle is positioned to really put the pressure onto many competitors, I can only hope they leverage this. It is comforting to think that Oracle is not a company that likes to let things sit so I feel like in the coming year we will be seeing a lot coming from this.