Oracle is close to having its entire software portfolio running on Linux, with last week's announcement that the company's Internet Application Server (iAS) 8i will support the open-source operating system. The vendor also announced expanded partnerships with four Linux distribution companies - Caldera Systems, SuSE Linux, TurboLinux and VA Linux Systems.
All three versions of iAS - the standard, enterprise and wireless editions - will support Linux, according to Bob Shimp, Oracle's senior director of Internet platform marketing. "Linux is ready for the very high end," he said. IAS is a Java-based application server specifically designed to support e-business applications.
Oracle has been shipping a Linux version of its Oracle 8i database for a year and has gradually moved its other software to the operating system, such as its development tools Linux Oracle Business Components for Java and Oracle Forms Developer 6i, and its E-Business Suite 11i, which includes the vendor's ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer relationship management) applications. Still to migrate to Linux are Oracle Internet Directory and Oracle Parallel Server, but it's only a matter of weeks before Linux versions of those products are available.
Although he couldn't provide any statistics for the current number of Linux-based deployments of Oracle software, Shimp said that during last month developers downloaded 285,000 copies of the Linux version of Oracle 8i from the vendor's developer network, Oracle Technology Network (OTN).