Oracle Linux customer undergoes trial by fire
Published: 02 Apr 2007 11:56 BST
One of the first converts to Oracle's support for Linux said it has endured a public backlash since its decision to drop Red Hat.
Melbourne company Opes Prime Stockbroking told ZDNet UK sister site ZDNet Australia that in the weeks following its announcement to adopt Oracle Linux, upset Linux enthusiasts phoned, emailed and wrote about the company online to complain at the decision.
"People called us out of the blue to tell us we were idiots," said Opes executive director Anthony Blumberg.
He also fielded a call from an unhappy Red Hat Australia and New Zealand managing director Max McLaren.
"I said, this is probably the first call I've had from Red Hat since we've been a customer," Blumberg said.
Opes received little communication from the vendor during their contract, he said, and was not about to change its stance.
Meanwhile, McLaren told ZDNet Australia Opes had acquired Red Hat support subscriptions with the purchase of two servers from channel partner Dell. The hardware vendor then was responsible for providing Red Hat support to Opes.
Nevertheless McLaren said he was "not at all" disappointed with Dell.
"It was difficult for us to prove our worth to the customer," he said. "They hadn't complained to us about anything being wrong."
Linux enthusiasts also slammed the company on bulletin board systems across the world. Most believed the Oracle offering to be inferior to Red Hat's, a vendor that has been at the forefront of Linux's gaining popularity.
However, the stockbroker is happy with the support Oracle provided. Opes has a three-year contract for Linux support, and is using Oracle Enterprise Linux, modelled on Red Hat 4.
Linux runs Opes' server infrastructure which consists of four servers for production, two for staging, one for development and another for disaster recovery.
Opes' use of Oracle's application server and database for an online retail system project was a key consideration in forgoing the third-party vendor support the Red Hat operating system offers.
"We only use Oracle at the moment. So long as Oracle supports what we do, we're happy," said Stuart Coggins, head of IT at Opes. "The whole Red Hat offering is everything to everyone but we don't really need that."
Another benefit was to have only one support team.
"I've been doing this for a long time, and there can be a lot of finger pointing between support teams," said Coggins. "Now we have the same support group the whole way through."
Opes is one of the few known Oracle Linux customers in Australia.
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