Database Reference
In-Depth Information
End of life announcements-Hardware
During the past few decades administrators and casual spectators have seen the demise of many platforms. Only very
few, of which Linux is the most notable, have been able to step in the void and fill a gap. What almost looks like a zoo
of platforms supported with Oracle 8i Release 3 from 1999 boiled down to a very modest few supported platforms with
Oracle 12.1. Most platforms died silently without too much of an outcry in the user community.
However the biggest waves in recent times were caused by Oracle's announcement to stop development for
the HP-UX/Itanium platform. This announcement came at a time when HP was trying to (re-)define itself and the
threat of the loss of a big revenue spinning platform was certainly not what the company expected. On their corporate
website, Oracle states the following:
After multiple conversations with Intel senior management Oracle has decided to discontinue all
software development on the Intel Itanium microprocessor. Intel management made it clear that
their strategic focus is on their x86 microprocessor and that Itanium was nearing the end of its life.
Ever since the announcement was made, the press had a real interest in the outcome of the story. What has been
forgotten in this discussion was that Microsoft (and Red Hat somewhat more unnoticed) stopped their development
for Itanium ports, which Oracle also acknowledges. This is a real shame since the processor design offered many
interesting features, although in the end the Itanium range of processors proved to be exotic and not widely used. As
any Oracle database administrator knows, the more widely used a platform, the less likely one runs into platform-
specific problems. However, it should be made clear that an end-of-life announcement does not mean that Oracle
abandons the platform completely, but rather that planning considerations on how to replace the platform should
start sooner rather than later. In the above-mentioned, high-profile case with Itanium, Oracle issued a statement on
September 2012 stating it was continuing to port the database to the platform.
From a planning point of view, although unpleasant, the de-support notice from the vendor for a certain platform
might be suited to free up budget for a technology refresh of the database estate. Even though the effort might not
encompass everything, the most critical systems at least need to be migrated before support for the current database
release ceases.
High-profile Oracle customers might be lucky in prolonging support for an ageing hardware estate, but in
general terms not acting when the time has come is going to introduce more problems later. Also, it should be noted
that migration projects take a certain amount of time and planning, especially when the destination platform uses a
different endian format. The author's advice is not to delay the necessary until it is too late. Time pressure is known to
introduce human mistakes!
In summary, end-of-life announcements provide the perfect occasion to get budget for a technology refresh,
also affectionately referred to as “tech-refresh.” Even the tightest budget owner cannot ignore the fact that operations
require supported platforms and hardware. Quite often, the platform to be replaced has outlived its useful life anyway,
and (some) “big iron” can be replaced by industry standard hardware.
Support policy for Oracle Software
Hardware is not the only thing affected by end-of-life announcements. Oracle introduced their lifetime support policy
with Oracle database 10g. The associated document, available from the Internet at:
http://www.oracle.com/us/
support/lifetime-support/index.html
,
details the Oracle product roadmap as well as the support matrix for
not-so-current releases.
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the lifetime support policy encompasses far more than just the database, which is covered here. please refer
to the url provided for other oracle products and divisions. it may also have been updated in the meantime.
Note
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