Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard plan to ship a SQL Server database appliance in November. The Microsoft-HP database appliance, announced at PASS Summit, sounds a lot like a recent Oracle Database Appliance launch. Is The VAR Guy imagining this database appliance feud or is it real? Here’s the update.
At the PASS Summit today, Microsoft and HP promised to deliver a HP Enterprise Database Consolidation Appliance optimized for SQL Server. Microsoft claimed the SQL Server database appliance will:
- help customers deploy databases in minutes instead of weeks;
- reduce operation costs up to 75 percent through savings of floor space, energy and infrastructure;
- require no application or database changes when consolidating databases.
Countering Oracle?
The VAR Guy didn’t spot any architecture or pricing information for the HP Enterprise Database Consolidation Appliance. But our resident blogger suspects the appliance is a Microsoft-HP response to the new Oracle Database Appliance.
The Oracle Database Appliance runs Oracle Linux and Oracle’s database on up to 24 Intel cores. Partners and customers can activate or deactivate Intel cores based on an application’s scalability needs. Avnet Technology Solutions, the value-added distributor, has ordered 100 of the Oracle Database Appliances for its channel partners, and expects to receive shipments within days.
In some ways, the Oracle Database Appliance is positioned to help customers migrate away from Microsoft SQL Server while consolidating physical hardware onto Oracle’s design. Now, the Microsoft-HP database appliance seems like a response to Oracle’s efforts.
Longer term, Microsoft is preparing SQL Server 2012 (formerly code-named Denali), a major database upgrade that’s expected to arrive in the first half of 2012, notes SQL Server Magazine.
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Tags: Avnet | Avnet Technology Solutions | Database Appliance | HP Enterprise Database Consolidation Appliance | Oracle Database Appliance | PASS Summit | SQL Server 2012 | SQL Server Appliance
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While I am no Oracle fan, since I think their “Engineered Systems” and “Exa-xxx’ stuff is a bunch of BS, trying to raise prices and provide 100% Oracle software and hardware lock-in. In my mind Engineered Systems would be things that are engineered to create lower cost and more value computing for a wider percentage of the market to be able to use computing, or to use it more widely. Versus dragging people backwards to the IBM mainframe approach of 1960.
Anyway, the only sadder thing is HP just watching what Oracle is doing and then trying to do an alternative with MS, or whoever, to match the Oracle over-priced, lock-in baloney.
My reaction when I read this was “yawn, snore” and “innovate don’t just imitate”. Hp is pretty darn lost, and I hope they get their mojo back, because they are not like Oracle, and seeing them imitate them, makes me nervous.
You may think that “engineered systems” are BS, but do you have anything to back that up? Oracle has impressive benchmarks showing the Exa systems delivering high performance at good prices. They have published many white papers showing the value of their approach. They do in fact “create lower cost and more value computing for a wider percentage of the market.”
Some people will prefer the ability to chose “best of breed”. Oracle still supports that. You can still buy IBM servers, EMC storage, Cisco switches, Qlogicc HBAs, 3rd part PCI flash cards and Oracle s/w and build your own, unique solution.
John,
Exa-xxx is only a low cost solution if you think Oracle is the only software company in the world. It makes it ridiculously hard to switch software providers, which is the whole idea. Do you think they were sitting around at Oracle with their 90% support margins and said they really need to start selling x86 server appliances at 20-40%? Everything related to hardware at Oracle is actually a software sales strategy. Their software is absurdly expensive, not as compared to open source but even as compared to IBM and MS. They know IBM is getting close with DB2 at half the cost and want to lock it in before customers get all “we want to make or own decisions” on them. If you buy Exa-xxx, you might as well just hand over your checkbook to Oracle.
Ha! Oracle supports best of breed, classic. Ask an HP-UX customer if they support best of breed. Ask an x86 customer trying to run VMware if Oracle supports best of breed. Ask an IBM – AIX customer that has had their support prices jacked.
Bill,
I agree, HP is fresh out of ideas. They just watch other people and copy at this point, which is disappointing. For instance, IBM Global Services with their EDS buy or IBM XIV with their 3PAR buy. This MS SQL box is their attempt at copying Oracle. The problem is, unlike Oracle, they do not get to keep the software support they lock-in. They need to figure out what it is that HP does these days. The answer seems to be that they make commodity hardware for MS with printers.
John,
one of my points in past posts on Exa-xxx, is that these products are being “over-hyped” by Oracle executives, beyond reality – claiming that the pipeline is $x kabillion and growing fast-fast, etc. They just seem over-obvious about it, and desperate to get people to believe it. The best data I have gathered is talking to some VAR’s and Oracle sales reps, and being told that they have to do Exa-xxx forecasts every week, instead of every month, and have to forecast for 3-years out, instead of 1-year out. Both of these sound like acts to un-naturally make the pipeline of interest more than it really is.
I also keep advocating some professional survey organization (industry analyst or financial analyst) to do some checks with end customers and VAR/Resellers, if there is any really demand, or, as I suspect, Larry E and his top staff, just trying to pump things up like PT Barnum. I suspect that the results will show limited interest and limited actual sales.
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