someone just pointed out to me that there is a distro called "oracle enterprise linux" which is effectively a re-branded RHEL, so i'm curious -- has anyone here used both centos and OEL and would there be any differences that would be worth caring about?
the only thing i can think of that might be worthwhile is that OEL might change some of the default kernel parms thru /etc/sysctl.conf that make that distro more appropriate for running large oracle databases. beyond that, i have no idea.
thoughts?
rday --
======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Linux Consulting, Training and Kernel Pedantry.
Web page: http://crashcourse.ca Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday ========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day wrote:
someone just pointed out to me that there is a distro called "oracle enterprise linux" which is effectively a re-branded RHEL, so i'm curious -- has anyone here used both centos and OEL and would there be any differences that would be worth caring about?
the only thing i can think of that might be worthwhile is that OEL might change some of the default kernel parms thru /etc/sysctl.conf that make that distro more appropriate for running large oracle databases. beyond that, i have no idea.
thoughts?
Price ?
On Sat, 23 Jan 2010, Fabian Arrotin wrote:
Robert P. J. Day wrote:
someone just pointed out to me that there is a distro called "oracle enterprise linux" which is effectively a re-branded RHEL, so i'm curious -- has anyone here used both centos and OEL and would there be any differences that would be worth caring about?
the only thing i can think of that might be worthwhile is that OEL might change some of the default kernel parms thru /etc/sysctl.conf that make that distro more appropriate for running large oracle databases. beyond that, i have no idea.
thoughts?
Price ?
OEL 5.4 is freely downloadable so i'm guessing that's not it.
rday --
======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Linux Consulting, Training and Kernel Pedantry.
Web page: http://crashcourse.ca Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday ========================================================================
On 01/23/2010 01:07 PM, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
Price ?
OEL 5.4 is freely downloadable so i'm guessing that's not it.
either you or I are missing something here.
downloadable != maintainable.
besides Oracle's offering does not get the vendor endorsement that CentOS does mostly due to the fact that they use a different toolchain than rhel and they have a different patchset. Vendor and platform endorsement on oracle's offering was not even into double digits a few months back, whereas rhel ( and therefore centos's ) was into 4 digits.
- KB
On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 1:47 PM, Robert P. J. Day rpjday@crashcourse.ca wrote:
someone just pointed out to me that there is a distro called "oracle enterprise linux" which is effectively a re-branded RHEL, so i'm curious -- has anyone here used both centos and OEL and would there be any differences that would be worth caring about?
the only thing i can think of that might be worthwhile is that OEL might change some of the default kernel parms thru /etc/sysctl.conf that make that distro more appropriate for running large oracle databases. beyond that, i have no idea.
thoughts?
rday
======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Linux Consulting, Training and Kernel Pedantry.
Web page: http://crashcourse.ca Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday ======================================================================== _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
CentOS is 100% RHEL clone + Extra repos
While OEL include Yast (from SuSE).
On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 7:47 AM, Robert P. J. Day rpjday@crashcourse.ca wrote:
someone just pointed out to me that there is a distro called "oracle enterprise linux" which is effectively a re-branded RHEL, so i'm curious -- has anyone here used both centos and OEL and would there be any differences that would be worth caring about?
the only thing i can think of that might be worthwhile is that OEL might change some of the default kernel parms thru /etc/sysctl.conf that make that distro more appropriate for running large oracle databases. beyond that, i have no idea.
thoughts?
CentOS is essentially a doggedly faithful rebuild of RHEL. OEL adds some tweaks, php-oracle, and various other mods they feel are appropriate. Last I looked, it was available for free, but the updates and support came with a price tag attached. This may have changed, and I make no claims as to its stance.
There's also a moral implication. RH's staff has vocally supported CentOS, and we contribute back to the RH community though bug reporting, bug fixes, suggestions, patches, etc. We don't charge for CentOS support, so we don't impact RH's business. Oracle on the other hand DOES offer paid support, which impacts RH's business, and I don't see any substantive attempts by oracle to give anything back to the community at large.
Note, I have nothing against oracle nor do I work for RH, so this is my own opinion, entirely speculative, and in rare cases incorrect.
On Sat, 23 Jan 2010, Jim Perrin wrote:
On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 7:47 AM, Robert P. J. Day rpjday@crashcourse.ca wrote:
someone just pointed out to me that there is a distro called "oracle enterprise linux" which is effectively a re-branded RHEL, so i'm curious -- has anyone here used both centos and OEL and would there be any differences that would be worth caring about?
the only thing i can think of that might be worthwhile is that OEL might change some of the default kernel parms thru /etc/sysctl.conf that make that distro more appropriate for running large oracle databases. beyond that, i have no idea.
thoughts?
CentOS is essentially a doggedly faithful rebuild of RHEL. OEL adds some tweaks, php-oracle, and various other mods they feel are appropriate. Last I looked, it was available for free, but the updates and support came with a price tag attached. This may have changed, and I make no claims as to its stance.
ok, that's useful to know. my original question was meant to address only the *technical* differences, but knowing about mandatory support and/or licensing is also useful.
There's also a moral implication. RH's staff has vocally supported CentOS, and we contribute back to the RH community though bug reporting, bug fixes, suggestions, patches, etc. We don't charge for CentOS support, so we don't impact RH's business. Oracle on the other hand DOES offer paid support, which impacts RH's business, and I don't see any substantive attempts by oracle to give anything back to the community at large.
again, not really a technical issue but good to know, thanks.
rday --
======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Linux Consulting, Training and Kernel Pedantry.
Web page: http://crashcourse.ca Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday ========================================================================
CentOS support, so we don't impact RH's business. Oracle on the other hand DOES offer paid support, which impacts RH's business, and I don't see any substantive attempts by oracle to give anything back to the community at large.
Just to be fair to Oracle on this count, they do give to the community:
- Free OS: OEL - Free databases (no cost): Oracle XE - Free cluster/parallel filesystems: OCFS2 - And quite a bit more... all available at oss.oracle.com
In terms of OEL, the technical details all revolve around a RH based Linux that can run Oracle with pre-tuned parameters (memory settings, disk buffers and so on).
They also support other OS distributions including Debian (*) and Solaris.
* DISCLAIMER: I have customers (and therefore a business relationship with Oracle) that run Oracle XE on Debian Lenny.
-geoff
--------------------------------- Geoff Galitz Blankenheim NRW, Germany http://www.galitz.org/ http://german-way.com/blog/
On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 6:47 AM, Robert P. J. Day rpjday@crashcourse.ca wrote:
someone just pointed out to me that there is a distro called "oracle enterprise linux" which is effectively a re-branded RHEL, so i'm curious -- has anyone here used both centos and OEL and would there be any differences that would be worth caring about?
Unless Oracle has changed their policy in the last two years or so, the release cycle for critical patches (e.g., security fixes) is _very_ different.
Quarterly for Oracle, days for CentOS. Again, observations are from a couple of years ago, but should be verifiable. See a recent email below the sig.
kind regards/ldv
October 20th, 2009 Oracle Critical Patch Update October 2009
Dear Oracle customer,
The Critical Patch Update for October 2009 was released on October 20, 2009. Oracle strongly recommends applying the patches as soon as possible.
<snip> ... </snip>
The next four Critical Patch Update release dates are:
January 12, 2010 April 13, 2010 July 13, 2010 October 12, 2010
Larry Vaden <larry.vaden@...> writes:
On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 6:47 AM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday <at> crashcourse.ca>
wrote:
someone just pointed out to me that there is a distro called "oracle enterprise linux" which is effectively a re-branded RHEL, so i'm curious -- has anyone here used both centos and OEL and would there be any differences that would be worth caring about?
Unless Oracle has changed their policy in the last two years or so, the release cycle for critical patches (e.g., security fixes) is _very_ different.
Quarterly for Oracle, days for CentOS. Again, observations are from a couple of years ago, but should be verifiable. See a recent email below the sig.
kind regards/ldv
October 20th, 2009 Oracle Critical Patch Update October 2009
Dear Oracle customer,
The Critical Patch Update for October 2009 was released on October 20, 2009. Oracle strongly recommends applying the patches as soon as possible.
<snip> ... </snip>
The next four Critical Patch Update release dates are:
January 12, 2010 April 13, 2010 July 13, 2010 October 12, 2010 _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS <at> centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
The rationale given at an Oracle presentation was that it reduces their support costs while at the same time giving their customers a more stable platform. Consider the possibility that RH releases an update that breaks an Oracle installation. Someone running Oracle on RH ends up with a broken system and finger pointing between RH and Oracle as to who caused the problem. Someone running OEL never sees the problem.
Given that most folks running OEL as their Oracle DB platform will have that system well protected, locked down and not exposed to either internal or external users. Thus, security flaws that only relate to exposed systems become less of an issue. On the other hand, it means that OEL is only appropriate for running an Oracle database server; not a web server, e-mail server, etc.
Cheers, Dave
-
Athmane Madjoudj -
David G. Miller -
Fabian Arrotin -
Geoff Galitz -
Jim Perrin -
Karanbir Singh -
Larry Vaden -
Robert P. J. Day