Oracle has signed a deal with Dell to bundle and
configure its database software for sales to the low-end,
high-volume marketplace.
The deal will make Dell the first hardware supplier to have an
offering built around Oracle's 10g database. As part of the
distribution pact, Dell will offer tested and supported servers
carrying Oracle software and will act as the customer point of
contact.
Oracle's chief executive officer Larry Ellison said Dell was
selected because of the "wonderful job" the company is capable of
doing shipping prebundled products. "We have no more important
partner than Dell," he said.
Ellison also noted that Dell could help implement Oracle's grid
vision, where servers running Linux are tied together using
Oracle's own real application clusters (RAC) server clustering.
Support for RAC now comes with the purchase of the 10g Standard
Edition licence.
Ellison suggested that instead of buying a four-way CPU box,
customers could, instead, buy two Dell boxes with two CPUs each and
run those in a RAC configuration so there would be no single point
of failure. He also said 10g automates the process of moving data
onto storage discs and load balancing it among those desks for
optimal application performance.
"It's all about delivering a system that's inexpensive to buy
but easy to use and with a very low total cost of ownership,"
Ellison said.
The mixed Dell/Oracle systems are available now. A server
running 10g on a Dell PowerEdge server with a Red Hat Linux
operating system will start at $4,108 (£2,235).
The companies also announced future joint manageability and
integration projects.
Marc L Songini writes for Computerworld