Oracle Committing to Sun IP, Better Cloud Services atop Linux and from CA

Oracle Corp. is backing up its commitment Sun's Sparc hardware and Solaris operating system with a new five-year roadmap. The company also boosted its Linux desktop streaming capabilities while Amazon.com Inc. and Novell, Inc. reached an agreement to deliver maintenance-backed versions of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server on Amazon's Web Services (AWS) platform. Lastly, CA Technologies Inc. acquired a privately-held cloud consulting provider to help it deliver consulting along with its software stack.

Focal Points:

• Oracle cleared up its intentions for Sun's Sparc-based servers last week in a webcast from the company's headquarters, hoping to both clarify its support for the platform and bolster lagging sales. Systems business executive John Fowler confirmed a roadmap that provides regular updates through 2015 and scalability that will go from 32 cores, four terabytes  (TB) of memory, and 512 threads to 128 cores, 64 TB of memory, and 16,384 threads. The company also stated that the forthcoming Solaris 11 operating system will arrive next year, and an upgrade to Solaris 10 is believed to arrive before this year concludes. Virtualization is a key strategy for the company, and a merger of Sun's Ops Center and Oracles Enterprise Manager software is expected by 2012. Elsewhere, an unconfirmed Oracle memo leak points to the end of Sun's open source OpenSolaris, as the company hopes to move customers to low-cost, but not free, Solaris options.
• Cloud-based Linux solutions received a boost from Oracle, Amazon, and Novell this week. New versions of Oracle's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) will officially support desktop streaming of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, Oracle Enterprise Linux, and Ubuntu, though other Linux distributions will also work. The VDI Software, which runs atop Oracle's Solaris operating system, can now allow audio and video streaming, maintenance of OS images across multiple accounts, and memory sharing for data center Windows clients in some applications. Amazon's deal with Novell brings hourly pricing options for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and 11 using Novell's SuSE Cloud Program, thus proving a full maintenance subscription to the enterprise server operating system on an on-demand basis. Amazon already offered hourly instances of Novell's Open SuSE server software.
• Continuing in its effort to bolster its cloud computing and virtualization capabilities, CA announced it will acquire a company that provides assistance to enterprises moving to the cloud. The Sunnyvale, CA-based 4Base provides cloud-based advisory services ranging from virtualization operations readiness assessments to virtualization capability assessments and strategy. CA had previously announced its Cloud-Connected Management suite, which coalesces the company's acquisitions in cloud data center deployment, operations, and service level management, and performance and system availability tools. The company wanted to engage customers early in the planning and assessment stages, and 4Base's capabilities and experience with more than 300 projects looks to provide the intended solutions. 4Base will become the center of CA's new Global Virtualization and Cloud consulting team. Terms of the deal are undisclosed.

Experton Group believes Sun customers should feel secure in Oracle's commitment to supporting strategies based on Java, Solaris, and Sparc. However, IT executives should expect the company to adhere to its word of more tightly integrating the Sun IP with the Oracle solution stack. This is likely to result in the slow but continuous removal of open source and heterogeneous solutions as Oracle wishes to capitalize on its investment by cross-selling its software capabilities and "encouraging" users to forgo competitive solutions for its own tightly-integrated product portfolio. IT executives need to look closely at platform offerings, determine where exposures exist, and begin working internally and with preferred vendors to identify the most adaptable and cost-effective solutions over the short and long term. IT executives should also expect Oracle to very tightly control its IP and aggressively go after parties that it perceives as wrongly using its intellectual property. After all, Oracle paid billions for Sun and intends to maximize its return. Interest and uptake of cloud-based solutions is on the rise as enterprises adopt solutions capable of providing integrated management of data center infrastructure hardware and software irrespective of geography and vendor. Early adopters have learned the hard way that these so-called roads to nirvana are largely uncharted and unpaved, thus, early exploration must be carefully tested and planned to avoid peril. The Amazon/Novell deal brings the market a cohesive choice for outsourced hosting of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server installations. CA has worked hard and succeeded in bringing together a cloud-based portfolio capable of assisting with the planning and management tasks needed for cloud migration. IT executives should consider CA among the short list of vendors capable of assisting with cloud transformations particularly as 4Base has experience with heterogeneous environments and large customers.