Oracle Linux on SPARC is dead? Oracle Linux at Risk?
Oracle made substantial changes in their strategy last year, perhaps on a "Wim"... and now they seemed to bet wrong.
Oracle has long pinned some of it's engineered systems on a clone of Red Hat Linux. After purchasing Sun, they released storage servers based upon Solaris on Intel and left it's other engineered systems on their knock-off Linux OS.
Oracle had to suffer through the successive Intel CPU fixes making each successive patch release slower or less secure. Now, the dominate Linux Vendor [Red Hat] that Oracle had been copying is being purchased by
IBM.
 |
| [SPARC logo, courtesy SPARC International] |
SPARC Life
It appears that there is still a SPARC of life in the world's highest performing CPU architecture... and that life in Solaris. There has been a recent roadmap release [ie
2018-08] which is substantially the same as it's previous release some 5 months earlier.
 |
| [Oracle logo, courtesy Oracle Corporation] |
Oracle SPARC
Oracle releases a new roadmap with an M8+ chip coming (ie
2018-03) and continues to design Oracle Solaris, for the distant future, for over a decade.
Oracle SPARC Solaris appears to be a steady ship, in turbulent seas.
 |
| [Fujitsu logo, courtest Fujitsu corporation] |
Fujitsu SPARC
This seems to coincides with the Fujitsu roadmap [i.e. since
last year!] It seems Fujitsu is designing the silicon for Oracle as they advance the Solaris Software layer. Fujitsu, a hardware provider supplying SPARC chips for Sun when SPARC was first created, continues to talk about new product coming [in
2018-02-03,
2018-03-15] - which is good news!
Fujitsu leaked [in
2018-07-06] is getting closer to releasing it's new Supercomputer architecture, not based upon SPARC, which probably means Fujitsu's Linux for SPARC will soon have no future.
Oracle Linux
There has been some speculation about Linux on SPARC from NetMgt. The last update of Oracle Linux on SPARC looks like
Summer 2017. It appears to have stalled, possibly killed when Wim returned to the Oracle in
November 2017.
Oracle's knock-off Linux is based upon Red Hat Linux... which is now being purchased [in
2018-10-28] by arch-enemy competitor IBM... who competes in all Oracle's major spaces (i.e. Cloud, RISC servers, Intel Servers, Database, etc.)
Conclusions
NetMgt has been tracking Oracle Linux for some time, but it appears Oracle Linux on SPARC stalled last year. Oracle Linux on SPARC now appears dead on arrival. Fujitsu SPARC no longer has a need for Linux. Oracle's Linux, is now oddly in a strange risk place, under Intel whose CPU's get slower with every defect fix. Oracle SPARC Solaris continues to be the highest performing Vendor Architecture and OS combination - the "sun" continued to shine in the darkness of declining performance of competitors.
