Try new Linux clusters (page 1 of 3)

As more and more companies weave business intelligence into the operational fabric of their businesses, they are looking at low-cost options for deploying their ever-growing data warehouses.

Traditionally, large data warehouses were deployed on high-end symmetric multiprocessing computers that didn't necessarily need to meet the same availability requirements as transaction processing systems.

Today, as companies extend their data warehouse assets to more users—both inside and outside the organization—there is a critical need to control IT costs and deliver higher service levels. That's why many companies are choosing to deploy their data warehouses on clustered low-cost commodity servers running Linux.

Enter Linux Power

Is Linux ready for these high-end data warehouses and business intelligence systems?

IT pros at Vanderbilt University think so. Until recently, this Nashville, Tennessee-based educational institution struggled with the cost of managing its growing information systems.

Vanderbilt discovered that running Oracle Database with Oracle Real Application Clusters on Linux would allow it to use low-cost Intel-based hardware. The economy of the solution was compelling: A two-node RISC-based server configuration would have cost $100,000, whereas a two-node Intel-based solution cost only $30,000.

'Our tests showed that we would get three times the server power and performance for the dollar, plus greater availability, if we switched from UNIX to Linux,' reports Tim Getsay, assistant vice chancellor of Vanderbilt's management information systems.

Today, Vanderbilt uses Oracle Database 10g with Oracle Real Application Clusters configured on 16 HP ProLiant DL580 servers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Oracle Real Application Clusters makes it easy to scale the data warehouse, because low-cost servers can incrementally be added to the cluster. According to Getsay, Vanderbilt expects to add 20 processors per year as it scales its data warehouse to several terabytes.

'It's not just the operating system but also the overall cost of commodity components that is driving down costs in these data warehouse installations,' says Lou Agosta, an analyst at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Forrester Research.

'The operating system is only about five percent of the price of the overall configuration and often less than one percent. It is not Linux, per se, that is driving down costs for Oracle data warehouse customers, but all of the things Oracle is doing with Linux in grid computing environments to create low-cost systems.'

The Linux cluster convergence

Apart from costs, Agosta believes that the adoption of open source operating systems such as Linux is being driven by a variety of factors.

'For one thing, large vendors such as IBM, HP, Oracle, and Dell are getting behind Linux,' he says. 'Second, many people want a low-cost, nonproprietary alternative to Windows. And, finally, because Linux runs on commodity components, it allows you to avoid technology lock-in.'

Oracle's commitment to Linux is part of the reason for its widespread adoption in the enterprise today. Oracle continues to work closely with Red Hat, Novell, and the Linux community to ensure that Oracle products and the Linux kernel are optimally configured and tuned to the underlying hardware, and Oracle provides seamless and integrated 24/7 customer support for Linux.

These business dynamics motivated Vanderbilt to deploy an enterprise grid that can manage all of the university's core databases on a centralized infrastructure, consolidating the data warehouse environments for both Vanderbilt University and the Vanderbilt Medical Center.