Product Synergies and Overlaps of a Combined Oracle-Sun

by eWEEK Labs

Still in beta, Sun’s xVM Server is, like Oracle’s shipping Oracle VM, based on the Xen hypervisor engine. This similarity should make it easier for Oracle to integrate the two product offerings.

Oracle has a manager for its Oracle VM virtualization platform, part of which is based on Sun’s Java code. It may be that Sun’s xVM Ops Center, now in its second version, may be a good point of integration between the two offerings.

Oracle Identity Manager is probably less widely implemented than the corresponding Sun Identity Manager. The Sun product may end up surviving, with more emphasis on using Oracle’s underlying database software going forward.

Here we see a high-availability architecture diagram for the Sun Identity Manager. Where we see “database” in this picture, it’s not hard to guess what the preferred product will be going forward.

Solaris should fit well as part of Oracle, since Sun’s OS is already a very prominent platform for running Oracle’s database and other software platform pieces. The role going forward for OpenSolaris, however, seems less clear.

Oracle has indicated that it intends to continue offering its Linux host as an option, which makes sense if for no other reason than to maintain pressure on Red Hat and avoid ceding Linux-based business to IBM.

With the Sun acquisition, Oracle can now directly provide servers and storage to complement its flagship database.

Part of MySQL’s reason for being centers on snatching share from Oracle’s costlier database product, but, for now, Oracle says MySQL will be added to the company’s database product suite.