At LinuxWorld Expo Tokyo last week, the biggest presence was not that of an American or European Linux vendor; heck, SuSE, Mandrake and Red Hat didn't even show up. Rather, the largest booth was shared by the Japanese branch of database vendor Oracle and distribution vendor Miracle Linux. If you notice a similarity in the names and logos of Miracle and Oracle Japan, that's no accident. Oracle Japan, which is fairly independent from the mother corporation, owns more than half of Miracle and is making a heavy investment in boosting Linux as a platform. For instance, Oracle Japan is sponsoring the Oracle Linux Summit being held June 20 in Tokyo and July 3 in Osaka (in Japanese only).
As for Miracle, the company produces a fully open source distribution intended to be LSB-compliant that it plans on bundling with commercial software from Oracle and other companies. One particularly interesting package the company recently announced combines the Miracle distribution, the Oracle 8i Workgroup Server, and Borland's Kylix development system.
Oracle isn't the only database for Linux; but Oracle's support, like IBM's, is an indication of the enterprise-level acceptance of the Linux platform. And Oracle is just one of the major database players that support Linux one way or another; Sybase, Progress Software, Informix, Empress, Raining Data (formerly Pick Systems), and of course IBM all support their flagship commercial databases under Linux.
Two notable companies have gone even further, open-sourcing their database engines (while generally keeping advanced development tools proprietary and for sale). SAP, a company known almost exclusively for products aimed at the enterprise, opened its database engine, SAP DB, earlier this year. The company joins Borland, which opened InterBase last year
. Of course, let's not forget the databases that have always made source code available. Both MySQL and PostgreSQL are now mature, full-featured databases with significant commercial support infrastructures. PostgreSQL lists a Web page full of commercial support organizations, of which the best-known (or at least best-funded) is GreatBridge. For those in Japan who don't need all the horsepower of Oracle, Miracle Linux offers a Linux/PostgreSQL bundle. Another Japanese company, Software Research Associates, also supports the PostgreSQL, though I don't know if I like its turtle logo.
MySQL also offers well-backed commercial support, coordinated by MySQL AB, the Swedish company that invented the software and owns the trademark. While MySQL's partner page isn't as full as the one for PostgreSQL, this project has one substantial ally: NuSphere, a subsidiary of commercial database vendor Progress, exists mainly to provide high-end enhancements and support for MySQL.
There are other options in addition to those mentioned above. The most complete lists I've found of databases for Linux, both commercial and open source, are from SAL Database Systems and linas.org. At either site, you'll find products with a lot of flexibility and many licensing and development options. What you'll also find, which is as important as the code itself, is a diverse and capable crop of enterprise-level support options, ranging from do-it-yourself to warm-and-fuzzy handholding.
Come to think of it, the only database vendor not here is Microsoft--but it's not missed very badly. Today's Linux databases offer plenty of compatibility, so much so that no one has to rely on Microsoft. Most of the databases I've mentioned can serve as fully functional drop-in replacements for SQL Server, handling Excel, Access, or any other front-end database requests. I hope that some North American Linux distributions follow Miracle's example and ship with PostgreSQL or MySQL pre-configured to work as a SQL Server replacement.
And, just in case anyone hands you some FUD about Linux not being suitable as a high-performance database platform, let's not forget about the recent test, conducted by the Transaction Processing Performance Council, in which a database system running Linux beat out one running under Windows. While I don't want to read too much into one isolated win, at least it proves that Linux-based databases are on the playing field now, and they're up to the enterprise challenge. And you don't need to go to Japan to figure that out.
To me, it's not a matter of whether or not Linux will be as successful a database platform as it is an Internet platform. The only question is how long it will take the computing world to find this out.
Are you looking to Linux as a high-availability database platform? Tell Evan in the TalkBack below or in the ZDNetLinux Forum. Or write to Evan directly at evan@starnix.com.
