Oracle Exec Touts Grid Computing Strategy

Speaking to a crowded keynote audience at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Phillips outlined what grid computing is and why Oracle is investing its entire software strategy in providing an infrastructure layer enabling the virtualization, management and allocation of resources in the grid.

Phillips said Oracle has been working toward grid computing for some time, and that 10G is the "culmination" of its strategy rather than a new one for the company. "We've been talking about this for years," he said.

The reason grid computing has become a popular notion in the industry and can be deployed is that several forces in the IT climate have converged, Phillips said.

The industry's pressure to lower costs because of economic reasons, along with the invention of technologies such as inexpensive blade servers, standard server operating systems with Linux and storage that is independent of the network, now make grid computing a viable option for customers, he said.

Oracle's plan is to provide "the software layer on top of that to virtualize" the resources running in a grid, he said.

Phillips said Oracle is uniquely positioned to provide software for grid computing because of its leadership in database, application server and enterprise management software--the three key software components necessary to efficiently manage a grid environment.

The benefits to customers of this plan are fault tolerance and automatic load balancing of server capacity, as well as unified management of all the computers running in the environment, he said.

"There are so many computers, you can't manage them individually," he said. "You need infrastructure that manages [servers] like a utility."

Phillips also cited three main processes that will help customers begin implementing a grid strategy.

The first is to consolidate servers and other resources in an IT system because "a few things to manage instead of a lot of things to manage is easier," Phillips said.

Secondly, he said customers must standardize systems on low-cost components. This notion supports Oracle's strategy with hardware vendors such as Dell to run Oracle software on Intel-based commodity servers running on Intel processors.

Finally, Phillips said customers must begin deploying software that automates all resources in their IT infrastructures to synchronize the management and allocation of those resources.

Meanwhile, as the show kicks off, Oracle continues its hostile bid for rival application vendor PeopleSoft, Pleasanton, Calif.

On Friday, Oracle re-extended its $19.50-per-share tender offer for PeopleSoft till midnight eastern time on Friday, Oct. 17. The previous offer expired on Sept. 19. At the close of business last Thursday, 38.7 million PeopleSoft shares had been tendered for Oracle's deal, the company said.

BARBARA DARROW contributed to this story.