Oracle To Beat Grid Drum With New Database, App Server, Management Releases

To drive home the point, all three, to be launched but not shipped at Oracle World in September, will carry the 10G moniker, said Bob Shimp, vice president of database marketing for Oracle, Redwood Shores, Calif. "We are in a new phase of post-Internet computing," Shimp told CRN.

The fact that they will take advantage of the emerging grid model, which distributes workloads across multiple PCs and servers, is not a surprise: Oracle has touted grid computing for two years. (See story.)

What Oracle must do is bring grid computing, now used primarily in scientific niche applications, into the enterprise mainstream. The scientific grids, where a job is handcrafted and not repeatable is unworkable for enterprise customers, said Shimp. "Enterprises need a predictable service level"

Business grids will rely on the evolution of technology--blade servers, commodity hardware, Linux and clustering--that is already available but will require a whole new class of management, service provisioning, load balancing and security, Shimp said.

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Oracle would not comment on packaging or pricing until the show but is working on a new "gridwide" framework to handle those types of issues, Shimp said.

Virtually all the high tech powers are pushing their own notion of grid computing. IBM has its OnDemand worldview, for example. The idea is that computing resources will be available whenever and wherever needed in a utility model.

As it preaches the grid gospel, Oracle is in a vicious battle for database marketshare with contenders IBM and Microsoft.

OracleWorld will take place in San Francisco September 7 till 11th.