[BBLISA] Summary: Anyone using Oracle Enterprise Linux?

[Paul Beltrani]

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 10:58 AM, Paul Beltrani <spamgrinder at gmail.com> wrote:
> Feel free to take a moment to laugh, then please consider the following.
>
> 1) We already have a solid infrastructure in place to support our
> CentOS/RHEL production systems.
> 2) As Oracle will not support their product on CentOS  we run RHEL on
> our Oracle DB servers. (i.e. CentOS everywhere but the DB servers)
> 3) In our experience, RHEL support is worse than useless.  i.e. they
> actually do provide negative value.
>
> Given that:
>  A) It is unlikely Oracle Linux support is any worse than Red Hat's
>  B) OEL is much cheaper than RHEL, ~1/3 the price
>  C) We're only looking to use OEL for our Oracle DB systems
>
> I think it's worth at least asking the question, does anyone have any
> production experience with OEL they would care to share with the list?
>
>  - Paul Beltrani
>

My apologies for not summarizing sooner.

I received two direct replies to my post.  Both were using OEL for
their Oracle databases and CentOS/RHEL for other uses. From a
technical perspective it was working fine for them.  Neither had used
Oracle for direct Linux support so they were unable to comment on
that.

One of the respondents had an interesting story regarding OEL support
costs.  Oracle attempted to significantly increase support charges
when it came time to renew.  It took some effort to get the price back
in line with the previous year's charges.

I would also like to clarify my comment that OEL support is ~ 1/3 the
price of RHEL. To be fair this isn't an equal comparison.  It stems
from the fact that
OEL "binary only" support lists for ~ $105/year while RHEL "Basic"
support is ~ $350/year.   Given that I don't feel we're getting more
than "binary only" support from RHEL, I'm comparing their minimum
support option with the minimum OEL option.  For the record, the OEL
equivalent of RHEL Basic support lists for ~ $450/year.


To summarize:
   From a technical perspective, OEL is working just fine for these users.
   There was no feedback on technical support
   Be prepared for Oracle to apply the crack dealer pricing model.

   Moving from RHEL to OEL is a reasonable option and may, at the very
least, be a useful bargaining tool in discussions with Red Hat.

  - Paul Beltrani