Final month, IBM quietly quietly introduced it is planning to launch a 24-core Energy 10 processor particularly for the advantage of an Oracle database, and Oracle doesn’t know why.
An announcement dated Dec. 13 known as “a press release of basic route” detailed IBM’s plans across the Energy S1014 server. The S1014 server is a single-socket, 4U rack mounted server with 16 NVMe SSDs and a most reminiscence capability of 64GB. The doc mentioned partially:
“IBM intends to announce a high-density 24-core processor for the IBM Energy S1014 system (MTM 9105-41B) to deal with software environments using an Oracle Database with the Commonplace Version 2 (SE2) licensing mannequin. It intends to mix a sturdy compute throughput with the superior reliability and availability options of the IBM Energy platform whereas complying with Oracle Database SE2 licensing pointers.”
Usually the Energy processor within the S1014 has 4 or eight cores, however IBM intends to extend that to 24, particularly citing the Oracle Database Commonplace Version 2 (SE2) licensing mannequin. The SE2 licensing mannequin is on a per-socket foundation, and never per core foundation. Most enterprise software program purposes, like VMware, are on a per core foundation, however some are per bodily CPU.
Within the case of Oracle Database SE2, the shopper’s license stays the identical whatever the variety of cores within the socket. And going from 4/8 cores to 24 cores might be a large efficiency increase.
However the 1014 has its shortcomings, corresponding to PCI Categorical 3 IO and 10GBase-T networking, neither of which is the highest finish of the efficiency scale. Servers are popping out now with PCIe 5, which is 4 instances sooner than PCIe 3, and 100Gb networking.
The query is, why is IBM doing a favor for its chief competitor within the RDBMS market? Tripling or quadrupling the variety of cores in a chip just isn’t trivial and can contain some expense. Does IBM anticipate to make that cash again? Oracle Database SE2 isn’t even Oracle’s high database; the Enterprise Version (EE) is.
It left Bob O’Donnell, principal analyst at Technalysis Analysis, additionally scratching his head. “My guess is that IBM has a bunch of shoppers who run Oracle databases they usually figured this can be a comparatively simple manner for them to supply a finest at school, Oracle database answer that will get round these bizarre licensing points that every one the large SaaS suppliers have,” he instructed me.
However he admitted confusion as to why Oracle selected SE and never the EE.
A press release from an IBM consultant mentioned “Including IBM’s present 24-core dual-chip Power10 processor module to the S1014 system not solely gives 3x extra core density and compute throughput in a dependable and safe enterprise-grade single socket system but in addition permits purchasers to maximise their funding in Oracle Commonplace Version 2 (SE2) and different software program.”
Which is completely true, and fully fails to reply the query. IBM declined to remark additional.
Oracle, for its half, mentioned that it didn’t request this core enhance from IBM, and for every other questions mentioned “you’ll should ask IBM.”
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