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Oracle Takes A Fall
Oracle posted fiscal fourth-quarter results that were just horrible for investors looking for more progress in web-based services, sending its shares lower.
The company had been expected to report a pickup in its software business and progress in cloud computing, shares of Oracle had gained 10 percent over the past three months. However yesterday it was clear that Oracle is getting a kicking from the competition like Salesforce.com and Workday which have been offering competitive software and Internet-based products at prices that often undercut Oracle.
Tech spending is likely to fall as more companies move to the cloud. Oracle has been rolling out its own cloud-based products but they remain under five percent of its overall revenue. For the fiscal first quarter, Oracle expects software and cloud revenue to grow between 6 percent and 8 percent. That forecast includes expectations for software- and platform-related cloud services to grow between 25 percent and 35 percent.
Oracle said it expects its hardware system revenue to be in a range of down 1 percent to up 3 percent.
For its latest fourth quarter, Oracle said overall revenue rose 3 percent to $11.3 billion. That was less than the $11.48 billion analysts had expected on average. Net income fell 4 percent to $3.6 billion.
Revenue from Oracle’s hardware systems products grew 2 percent to $870 million.
Intel And Oracle Team Up Again
Oracle has added systems to its enterprise-class x86 server line featuring elastic computing capabilities that dynamically adapt their configurations in response to workloads.
The Oracle Sun Server X4-4 and Sun Server X4-8 are four-socket and eight-socket systems designed for data centre workloads such as virtualisation, Oracle databases and scale-up enterprise applications.
However, the two servers are fitted with a unique variant of Intel’s Xeon E7 v2 processor family that combines the capabilities of three different Xeon processors into one.
Oracle said it worked with Intel to create this chip, the Xeon E7-8895 v2, which can dynamically switch its core count, clock frequency and power consumption without the need for a system level reboot.
This chip is the heart of the elastic computing capability of the Sun Server X4-4 and Sun Server X4-8, enabling them to adapt to the requirements of different workloads based on its runtime configuration.
It might be configured for transaction processing at a high clock speed for one hour, then switched to higher core counts for the next hour for higher throughput computing, according to Oracle.
“Through close collaboration with Intel, we are the first to announce servers based on the new Xeon E7-8895 v2 processors and the first with unique capabilities that allow customers to dynamically address different workloads in real time,” said Ali Alasti, senior vice president for hardware development at Oracle.
Enhancements have also been made to the system firmware and to Oracle’s Solaris, and Oracle Linux operating systems to support the elastic computing features.
Oracle also said the new systems have a modular design that allows the processors to be upgraded to future Xeon chips, while all the disks are hot-swappable, plus there is hot-pluggable I/O support for industry-standard low-profile PCI Express cards via a dual PCIe card carrier.
The servers also feature a “glueless” architecture that removes the need for a node controller. As node controllers typically change from one processor generation to the next because of modifications to inter-processor communication and coherency protocols, the elimination enables Oracle to offer a future-proof chassis that will support future processor releases from Intel, the firm said.
The Sun Server X4-8 is touted by Oracle as ideal for running its Oracle Database, which has just been updated with an in-memory processing option. It supports 120 processor cores with up to 6TB of memory in its 5U rack-mount chassis, plus up to 9.6TB of hard drive or 3.2TB of solid state drive (SSD) storage.
Meanwhile, the Sun Server X4-4 is said to be well suited for applications requiring large memory footprint virtual machines and running real-time analytics software.
It can be configured with two or four of the Xeon E7-8895 v2 processors, with up to 3TB of memory and 4.8TB of PCIe flash plus 2.4TB of SSDs or 7.2TB of hard drives.
Heartbleed Hits Oracle
Oracle issued a comprehensive list of its software that may or may not be impacted by the OpenSSL (secure sockets layer) vulnerability known as Heartbleed, while warning that no fixes are yet available for some likely affected products.
The list includes well over 100 products that appear to be in the clear, either because they never used the version of OpenSSL reported to be vulnerable to Heartbleed, or because they don’t use OpenSSL at all.
However, Oracle is still investigating whether another roughly 20 products, including MySQL Connector/C++, Oracle SOA Suite and Nimbula Director, are vulnerable.
Oracle determined that seven products are vulnerable and is offering fixes. These include Communications Operation Monitor, MySQL Enterprise Monitor, MySQL Enterprise Server 5.6, Oracle Communications Session Monitor, Oracle Linux 6, Oracle Mobile Security Suite and some Solaris 11.2 implementations.
Another 14 products are likely to be vulnerable, but Oracle doesn’t have fixes for them yet, according to the post. These include BlueKai, Java ME and MySQL Workbench.
Users of Oracle’s growing family of cloud services may also be able to breath easy. “It appears that both externally and internally (private) accessible applications hosted in Oracle Cloud Data Centers are currently not at risk from this vulnerability,” although Oracle continues to investigate, according to the post.
Heartbleed, which was revealed by researchers last week, can allow attackers who exploit it to steal information on systems thought to be protected by OpenSSL encryption. A fix for the vulnerable version of OpenSSL has been released and vendors and IT organizations are scrambling to patch their products and systems.
Observers consider Heartbleed one of the most serious Internet security vulnerabilities in recent times.
Meanwhile, this week Oracle also shipped 104 patches as part of its regular quarterly release.
The patch batch includes security fixes for Oracle database 11g and 12c, Fusion Middleware 11g and 12c, Fusion Applications, WebLogic Server and dozens of other products. Some 37 patches target Java SE alone.
A detailed rundown of the vulnerabilities’ relative severity has been posted to an official Oracle blog.
Javascript Security Flaws Discovered
Polish researchers have released technical details and attack code for 30 security issues affecting Oracle’s Java Cloud Service. Some of the flaws make it possible for attackers to read or modify users’ sensitive data or to execute malicious code.
Security Explorations said it would normally withhold public airings until after any vulnerability has been fixed. But apparently Oracle representatives failed to resolve some of the more crucial issues including bypasses of the Java security sandbox, bypasses of Java whitelisting rules, the use of shared WebLogic server administrator passwords, and the availability of plain-text use passwords stored in some systems.
Oracle apparently has admitted to the researchers that it cannot promise whether it will be communicating resolution of security vulnerabilities affecting their cloud data centres in the future.
Adam Gowdiak, CEO of Security Explorations said Oracle unveiled the Java Cloud Service in 2011 and held it up as a way to better compete against Salesforce.com.
Juniper Boots Employees
Juniper Networks plans to reduce its global workforce by six percent and focus on its high-growth businesses. Juniper said most of the cuts would impact middle management positions and that it expected to incur cash charges of about $35 million in the first quarter, related to severance and other expenses. The company had 9,483 full-time employees as of December 31.
Juniper also said it would stop development of the application delivery controller technology, which helps remove excess load from servers, resulting in a non-cash intangible asset impairment charge of about $85 million. The company said it plans to consolidate its facilities, flog off of about 300,000 square feet of leased facilities.
Juniper added that it expected to record other non-cash asset write-downs of about $10 million in the first quarter and that it expects to carry out more restructuring in the second quarter.
Hedge fund Elliott recently claimed that Juniper shares were “undervalued” and could be worth $35-$40 if Juniper focused on revamping its core business of making routers and switches for mobile carriers such as Verizon and AT&T. Shares of Juniper are currently worth at $26.35.
Oracle Updates NoSQL
Oracle has announced the availability of the latest edition of its NoSQL datatabase.
NoSQL is Oracle’s distributed key-value database. Now in it’s third version, the enhancements this time are heavily centred around security and business continuity.
Oracle NoSQL 3.0 features improvements in security with cluster-wide password based user authentication and integration with Oracle Wallet. Session level Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption and network port restriction are also included.
For disaster recovery and prevention, there’s automatic fail-over to metro-area secondary data centres, while secondary server zones can be used to offload read-only workloads to take the pressure off primary servers under stress.
For developers, there is added support for tabular data models that Oracle claims will simplify application design and improve integration with SQL based applications, while secondary indexing improves query performance.
“Oracle NoSQL 3.0 helps organisations fill the gap in skills, security and performance by delivering […] enterprise-class NoSQL database that empowers database developers and DBAs to easily, intuitively and securely build and deploy next generation applications,” said Oracle’s EVP of Database Server Technologies, Andrew Mendelsohn.
It’s already been a big week for the SQL community with NoSQL arriving on MariaDB for the first time, courtesy of a tie-up between SkySQL, Google and IBM on Tuesday, while yesterday Fusion-IO announced the use of Non-volatile memory (NVM) compression in MySQL to increase the capacity of SSD storage.
Both the community and enterprise versions of Oracle NoSQL Database 3.0 are available for download now from the Oracle Technology Network.
SkySQL Joins IBM On SQL Merger
SkySQL has announced a line of MariaDB products that combine NoSQL and SQL technology, offering users the ability to handle large unstructured data sets alongside traditional database features to ensure data consistency.
Available immediately, MariaDB Enterprise 2 and MariaDB Enterprise Cluster 2 are based on the code used in the firm’s MariaDB 10 database server, which it also released today.
According to SkySQL, the availability of an enterprise grade SQL database system with NoSQL interoperability will be a game changer for developers building revenue generating applications and database administrators in charge of large, complex environments.
The two new products have been developed with support from other partners in the open source community, including Red Hat, IBM and Google, according to the firm, and are aimed at giving IT managers more options for managing large volumes of data.
In fact, Red Hat will use MariaDB Enterprise 2 as the default database for its enterprise customers, while Google has also moved large parts of its infrastructure to MariaDB, according to Dion Cornett, VP of Global Sales for SkySQL .
Cornett said that customers have been using a wide variety of databases over the past few years in order to meet the diverse requirements of applications.
“The types of applications have evolved over time, and the challenge we now have today is that people have different IT stack structures, and trying to integrate all that has been very challenging and required lots of custom code to be created. What we’re doing with MariaDB is introduce an array of features to combine the best of both worlds,” he said.
The features are designed to allow developers and database administrators to take many different data structures and integrate them and use them in a cohesive application, in the same way that standard database tools presently allow.
These include the Connect Storage Engine, which enables access to a wide variety of file formats such as XML and CSV files, and the ability to run familiar SQL commands against that data.
A key feature is dynamic columns, which enables MariaDB to “smartly interpret” incoming data and adapt it to the data structure that best fits, according to Cornett.
“At a technical level what you’re actually looking at are files within the cells of information that can vary in size, which is not a capability you’ve traditionally had in databases and that flexibility is a big leap forward,” he said.
The new MariaDB products can also plug into the Apache Cassandra storage engine, which can take a columnar data store and read or write against it like it is a traditional SQL table.
An example of how MariaDB Enterprise 2 might be used is if a service provider has a large-scale video server and wants to combine that with billing information, Cornett said.
“The customer’s video history and what they’re consuming could be very unstructured, but the billing structure will be very fixed, and it has been something of a challenge to bring the two of those together up to this point,” he explained.
LibreOffice Going After MS Office
February 10, 2014 by admin
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Libreoffice 4.2 is out and is a major upgrade release.
The popular alternative to Microsoft Office has been retooled to increase compatibility with that expensive proprietary productivity applications suite, including compatibility with Visio and Publisher files.
In addition to a much improved formula process for its spreadsheet application, Libreoffice 4.2 also includes a new startup screen and improved round trip compatibility for newer formats such as .docx.
Java accessibility features are being phased out in favour of the IBM IAccessibility2 package, which will supercede the Java version in future editions.
iOS users can take advantage of the Impress Remote Control feature that allows users to control presentations from their smartphones. This feature has been available on Android for some time but now Apple fans can use it too.
Libreoffice claims that this is the biggest recoding of its office suite yet and says that it now offers better integration with Windows 7 and Windows 8, with documents grouped on the taskbar and quickview thumbnails.
The news comes after UK cabinet minister Francis Maude recently announced that Parliament will move towards using open source software for its documents, and said that interoperability improvements such as those Libreoffice has introduced will be key to ensuring that all areas of government communicate a lot more effectively than they do right now.
Libreoffice has also made contributing to continued development of the open source office suite even easier with a new code submission and review portal known as Gerrit.
Microsoft Buys Parature
Microsoft Corp said that they it will acquire cloud-based software maker Parature Inc, which assists businesses in managing help desks and provide other customer support services.
Parature’s software helps businesses provide automated customer service, manage online discussion boards and forums, and conduct online surveys.
The company’s customers include Ask.com, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, International Business Machines Corp and Saba Software Inc.
Microsoft did not disclose the terms of the deal.
The acquisition will boost Microsoft’s Dynamics unit, which makes business software and counts Mattress Firm Holding Corp, Pandora Media Inc and Nissan Motor Co as customers.
Cloud computing, a broad term referring to the delivery of services via the Internet from remote data centers, is a favorite with businesses because it is faster to implement and has lower upfront costs than traditional software.
Oracle Corp said in December that it would buy web-based marketing software maker Responsys Inc for about $1.39 billion to bolster its cloud computing offerings.
Salesforce.com Inc, the biggest maker of online sales management tools, said in June that it would pay $2.5 billion for marketing software maker ExactTarget, which helps companies reach customers on social networks through mobile devices.
HP Retakes Server Lead
Hewlett-Packard reclaimed its server crown from IBM last quarter as the overall market contracted and Taiwanese vendors made big gains selling directly to Internet giants like Google and Facebook, according to an IDC report.
HP expanded its share of the market only modestly from a year earlier but IBM’s portion declined 4.5 points despite solid mainframe sales, to leave HP in the top spot. HP finished the third quarter with 28.1% of worldwide server revenue to IBM’s 23.4%, IDC said.
But the strongest growth was for the “ODM direct” segment which IDC broke out for the first time this quarter. It stands for original design manufacturers, which are Taiwanese firms like Quanta Computer, Wistron Group, Inventec and Compal, which sell partial and fully-built servers to the big cloud providers.
It’s a growing segment and one that threatens the incumbents. ODM’s accounted for 6.5% of server revenue last quarter, up 45.2% from a year earlier, IDC said. If the ODM category were a single vendor, it would be the third largest ahead of Dell.
Almost 80% of the ODM’s server revenue came from the U.S., primarily from sales to Google, Amazon, Facebook and Rackspace.
Overall, the server market declined 3.7% from a year earlier to $12.1 billion. It was the third consecutive quarter of declining revenue but IDC predicts improvement with a refresh cycle early next year. In terms of units shipped, volumes were about flat year over year, meaning average selling prices dropped.
Volume systems — mostly x86 servers — picked up slightly from last year, with 3.5% revenue growth. But sales of midrange and high-end systems dropped 17.8% and 22.5%, respectively, IDC said.
IBM fared worst of the top 5 vendors, with revenue down 19.4% due to “soft demand for System x and Power Systems,” IDC said. Dell retained third place with 16.2% of revenue, about flat from last year, while Cisco Systems and Oracle tied for fourth.
Cisco saw the most growth of the top vendors, with a nearly 43% revenue jump, IDC said.