Why Oracle Database runs best on Oracle Linux

1 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

Business / Technical Brief

Why Oracle Database Runs

Best on Oracle Linux

Technical Brief

August 3, 2022

Public

2 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

Purpose statement

This document describes why Oracle Linux is the best operating environment for

running the Oracle Database.

Disclaimer

This document in any form, software or printed matter, contains proprietary

information that is the exclusive property of Oracle. Your access to and use of

this confidential material is subject to the terms and conditions of your Oracle

software license and service agreement, which has been executed and with

which you agree to comply. This document and information contained herein

may not be disclosed, copied, reproduced or distributed to anyone outside

Oracle without prior written consent of Oracle. This document is not part of your

license agreement nor can it be incorporated into any contractual agreement

with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates.

This document is for informational purposes only and is intended solely to assist

you in planning for the implementation and upgrade of the product features

described. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality,

and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The

development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described in

this document remains at the sole discretion of Oracle. Due to the nature of the

product architecture, it may not be possible to safely include all features

described in this document without risking significant destabilization of the code.

 
3  Technical Brief  /  Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux  /  Version 3.0   
  Copyright © 2022, Oracle and/or its affiliates  /  Public 
Table of contents 
Purpose statement  2 
Disclaimer  2 
Introduction  4 
Oracle Database is developed on Oracle Linux  4 
The standard for Oracle Database  5 
Oracle Linux advantages for Database deployments  5 
Optimized transaction performance and scale  6 
Resource management  7 
Database Smart Flash Cache  7 
Mission-critical reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS)  8 
Advanced end-to-end data integrity solutions  8 
High availability with Oracle Clusterware: included with Oracle Linux 
Support  9 
Built-In security and data safeguards  9 
Simplified virtualized and containerized workloads  10 
Cloud-ready integrated services  10 
Full-stack manageability  11 
Rapid deployments  11 
Purpose-built Engineered Systems  12 
Pre-installation packages and preloaded Oracle Systems  12 
Empowering Database solutions on Oracle Linux  13 
Conclusion  13 
For more information  14 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

4 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

Introduction

Many essential business applications such as order entry, financials, human

resources, customer relationship management, and enterprise resource planning

run on an Oracle Database. These applications sustain core operations that

generate revenue, improve business efficiency, and increase profitability.

Because business success often depends closely on these strategic applications,

IT departments strive to provide an optimal Oracle Database infrastructure—one

that delivers responsive performance, scalable capacity, tight security, and

“always-on” availability. The infrastructure must also be easy to manage and

support fast database server provisioning, allowing transaction capacity to be

added easily and deployed into production quickly.

For Oracle Database workloads running on Oracle Linux, on-premises or in the

cloud, deep testing and integration between the layers brings substantial

benefits: fast transaction speeds, scalable performance, and the security and

reliability needed to meet strict service level agreements (SLAs). In addition, an

end-to-end Oracle stack increases administrative efficiency since there’s no need

for cross-platform skill sets to manage multiple vendor technologies. And there’s

the added benefit of a single point of contact from the industry’s leading

database infrastructure experts, for your most critical service and support issues.

Oracle Database is built on a multitenant architecture designed to simplify the

process of evolving to a cloud-based Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) delivery

model. To build an optimal infrastructure for Oracle Database, forward-thinking

solution architects select Oracle Linux for the operating system (OS) tier. Oracle

Linux is a highly reliable, highly secure, and cloud-ready operating system that is

a cost-effective and high-performance choice when modernizing infrastructure

or consolidating database instances on Oracle Database. This paper explains why

Oracle Linux is the best choice for Oracle Database environments.

Oracle Database is developed on Oracle Linux

Oracle Linux is the development standard at Oracle. Oracle Database and all of

Oracle’s other software, services, and solutions are developed on and run in

production on Oracle Linux. Developers working on Oracle Database are able to

troubleshoot the entire stack, all the way down to the Linux kernel, making

performance and reliability improvements as well as fixing bugs. This integrated

view from top-to-bottom allows them to fix bottlenecks and problems that might

originate in the OS, rather than working around them.

Oracle Linux is tightly coupled with Oracle Database and application testing,

which hardens software releases throughout each product’s lifecycle. Even

before formal evaluation occurs, Oracle Linux is the base platform on which

developers prove functionality, quality, and software viability. And before any

database or application software is made available, Oracle engineering teams

conduct formal stress tests on Oracle Linux to certify Oracle Database and Oracle

Real Application Clusters (RAC), along with an extensive battery of system

verification and performance tests.

Oracle Linux is the runtime standard at Oracle. SaaS, PaaS, and internal services

for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure run on Oracle Linux. Oracle's premier converged

5 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

infrastructure and Exadata Database Machines run Oracle Linux. This creates a

very large pool of high-value, heavily loaded usage scenarios that Oracle is

constantly monitoring and has incentive to fix. This tends to expose any hidden

weakness in either the OS or the interaction with the database in an environment

where that weakness is very likely to be discovered, properly diagnosed, and

fixed. There may be no other combination of operating system and database that

receives this breadth and depth of live testing.

Oracle Linux includes the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK), which is

specifically optimized for the best performance of Oracle software. Oracle

Database and Oracle Linux development teams collaborate on UEK performance

enhancements, tuning system calls and C library interfaces that accelerate

applications and query processing times. Oracle engineers extensively test the

optimized UEK across Oracle’s database, middleware, and application tiers as

well as on Oracle servers and engineered systems. UEK is also subject to

incremental and widespread testing across IT development systems running the

family of Oracle Database products. UEK also pulls in valuable modern

improvements from the upstream Linux versions, so that UEK has improvements

that are not available in other distributions, but are nonetheless 100% pure

open-source, community driven Linux. These improvements eventually are

released by other distributions, but Oracle Linux users receive the benefit of

commercially supported, tested, optimized versions of these before users of

other mainstream kernel users.

The standard for Oracle Database

Oracle Linux is used extensively by thousands of Oracle Cloud customers

worldwide. Thousands of Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) certify their

software on Oracle Linux and independent hardware vendors qualify their

hardware on Oracle Linux with UEK. Oracle’s internal development teams are

supported by thousands of Oracle Linux servers, with Oracle Linux as the

development standard for Oracle Database products and services. According to

the industry analyst firm IDC, Oracle Linux is experiencing strong market growth:

“As one the most comprehensive enterprise Linux distributions, Oracle Linux has

seen strong and consistent adoption past few years. Much of its growth comes

from customers moving to Oracle Linux in order to take advantage of ‘Oracle on

Oracle’ i.e., Oracle’s OS optimization for its own solution stacks, running on-

premises and in the cloud” - Ashish Nadkarni, IDC

This growth trend highlights how IT organizations are increasingly selecting

Oracle Linux to create mission-critical database infrastructures that are

responsive, highly scalable, and cost-effective.

Oracle Linux advantages for Database deployments

Beyond the flexibility and low TCO of open source, Oracle Linux offers

enterprise-class performance, security, and mission-critical reliability, availability,

and serviceability (RAS). Additionally, what distinguishes Oracle Linux from other

OS platforms — in particular for Oracle Database workloads — are advantages

afforded by the operating system’s deep integration with the solution stack,

optimizations resulting from industry collaborations, and UEK enhancements.

6 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

Optimized transaction performance and scale

Oracle Database and Oracle Linux engineering teams collaborate continuously

on improvements and optimizations to boost database application performance.

For example, when traditional inter-process communication (IPC) mechanisms

exhibited stability issues under heavy loads, Oracle engineers pioneered a new

approach—Reliable Datagram Sockets (RDS), a low-latency connectionless

protocol for delivering datagrams reliably to thousands of endpoints. Because

RDS resulted in fewer retransmissions (especially during times of peak

processing), it greatly improved database performance on Linux. Oracle

contributed the RDS code to the open source community and it is now part of the

Linux kernel. Oracle Database engineers were subsequently able to simplify the

database code, removing extraneous user code that addressed the instability

issues—allowing Oracle Linux to do the “heavy lifting” for high-performance

database communications.

Other optimizations stem from enhancements designed to accelerate

performance on today’s multicore x86 processors and advanced systems

architectures. Historically Linux was widely deployed for compute- and data-

intensive High-Performance Computing (HPC) applications. InfiniBand, which

offers superior throughput, low latency, and excellent scalability, was frequently

used as a switching fabric in demanding HPC applications and is now a prevalent

technology throughout enterprise data centers for similar reasons.

Notably, InfiniBand switches are a critical component in the Oracle Exadata

Database Machine (an Oracle engineered system designed for extreme database

performance) in which InfiniBand provides high-bandwidth connections between

the system’s compute and storage nodes. Data throughput performance in

Oracle Exadata depends heavily on the optimized InfiniBand networking stack in

Oracle Linux, the core OS in these powerful systems. Oracle developers tuned the

Oracle Linux Infiniband stack to scale throughput in support of extremely

demanding workloads. Oracle ultimately contributed these performance-related

improvements for InfiniBand to the open source community—one of many

technologies that the Oracle Linux team has made to further the success of Linux

and open source.

Collaborating with Intel has also resulted in enhancements that help Oracle

Database applications scale well on x86 servers running Oracle Linux. Working

with Oracle Database engineers, Intel optimized CPU threading algorithms,

allowing the database to take advantage of Intel SIMD and AVX instructions that

improve NUMA scalability. In addition, Oracle Database software uses the

multithreaded Intel

IPP (Intel

Integrated Performance Primitives) library to

accelerate columnar compression/decompression as well as encryption

operations. For database applications compiled on Oracle Linux, Oracle and Intel

also recommend the optimized Intel compiler to obtain the best possible

application performance.

Oracle Linux with UEK includes extensive performance and scalability

improvements to the process scheduler, memory management, file systems, and

the networking stack. It was tuned to perform better and faster on leading-edge

x86 configurations that feature many CPU cores and large amounts of main

7 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

memory. Optimized libraries and system calls help to improve performance for

Oracle Database queries. Because of these optimizations and pervasive testing

that occurs within Oracle, Oracle Linux is able to address large transaction

capacities and scale well as the number of database users or the number of

databases increases. For companies consolidating multiple databases on Oracle

Database, fast transaction response times and good scalability are key factors

that contribute to a cost-effective infrastructure. Improvements to the operating

system are also pushed upstream into the open source Linux community so that

the optimizations can benefit non-Oracle application workloads as well.

Resource management

Allocating system resources (CPUs, memory, network and storage bandwidth) to

specific processes—such as Oracle Database instances—helps strategic

applications get the resources they need, while restricting resources available to

other less-critical applications. Oracle Linux enables resource management

through the use of control groups (cgroups). For Oracle Database applications

on large systems (like Oracle Exadata Database Machine), cgroups can be

especially valuable because it’s possible to perform “instance caging,” binding

database instances to specific CPUs. On NUMA architectures, this has the effect

of pinning processes to the same processor and memory nodes. NUMA binding

in this way can be a big performance win since it allows a processor to access

local rather than non-local memory, making memory accesses considerably

faster.

Database Smart Flash Cache

Since many OLTP workloads are read-intensive, Oracle Database engineers

developed Database Smart Flash Cache, an innovative solution on Oracle Linux

to accelerate I/O operations for read-mostly database workloads. This

functionality allows the database buffer cache to expand beyond the System

Global Area (SGA) in main memory to a second-level cache that resides on a

flash device. It stores clean (unmodified) database blocks that have been evicted

from the SGA buffer cache to make room for other blocks. If a block selected for

eviction has been modified, the dirty block is first written to disk by one of the

database writer (DBWR) processes, then it is written to the Database Smart Flash

Cache. Blocks can later be retrieved from the Database Smart Flash Cache and

returned to the SGA as required. If a block cannot be found either in the SGA

buffer cache or the Database Smart Flash Cache, it will be retrieved from disk.

Because flash memory is an order of magnitude faster for read operations (e.g.,

4 ms disk reads vs. 0.4 ms flash reads), benefits can include both increased

transaction throughput and improved application response times. Smart Flash

Cache also significantly accelerates database performance without additional

cost, beyond the cost of the secondary flash.

Oracle Database environments with the potential to make effective use of this

technology include: workloads with repeated short transactions where many

users access the same data, storage systems that exhibit intensive disk

read activity, and systems under heavy main memory pressure that prevents

more memory being allocated to the SGA buffer cache. Database Smart Flash

8 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

Cache is also supported in Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) environments

and can be applied to individual Oracle RAC nodes as required.

To learn more, read the Oracle Database Smart Flash Cache with Oracle Linux

technical paper.

Mission-critical reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS)

In conjunction with advanced reliability features in leading-edge x86 systems,

Oracle Linux creates a highly available operating system for deploying mission-

critical database applications. Its ability to apply kernel fixes and security patches

as soon as these updates become available is a vital element in protecting data

and maintaining application continuity. While other operating systems require

planned outages to apply kernel fixes as well as time to reboot, Oracle Linux

supports “zero-downtime” updates using Oracle Ksplice technology. Ksplice

updates the Linux OS system kernel and key user space libraries, with no reboot

or interruption—virtually eliminating system downtime associated with updates.

For example, customers were able to use Ksplice to patch security vulnerabilities

such as Heartbleed and Dirty Cow as soon as fixes were available without any

application downtime, eliminating further system remediation delays and costly

planned downtime. Ksplice is available to customers with an Oracle Linux

Premier Support subscription, for on-premises and Oracle Cloud deployment, at

no additional cost. Ksplice greatly simplifies server maintenance, improving the

continuous availability of business-critical database applications. For more

information, see the Ksplice: Zero-Downtime Updates for Oracle Linux and

Oracle VM datasheet.

Oracle Linux takes full advantage of RAS features in today’s x86 processors

configured in Oracle and third-party x86 systems. These advanced processors

follow the Machine Check Architecture (MCA) in which CPUs can report hardware

errors (e.g., bus, Error-Correcting Code (ECC), parity, and cache errors) to the

operating system. Oracle Linux runs a Machine Check Exception (MCE) daemon

called mcelog that detects and reports unrecoverable hardware problems. The

daemon tracks and logs hardware errors, taking action based on error thresholds

and in some cases triggering events such as CPU or memory off-lining.

In addition to fault management at the processor level, Oracle x86 systems

feature superior RAS capabilities at the system level, including redundant hot-

swappable power supplies and cooling fans, hot-swappable drives, and ECC

memories. Oracle Servers feature hot-swappable PCIe Express Modules, as well

as hot-pluggable drives and redundant hot-swappable power supplies and fans.

Using the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) utility (ipmitool),

administrators can perform server initialization, monitoring, and maintenance

tasks from Oracle Linux, managing Field-Replaceable Units (FRUs), network

configurations, sensor readings, and remote chassis power controls through the

system’s service processor.

Advanced end-to-end data integrity solutions

Oracle Database and Oracle Linux engineering teams have collaborated with

third-party vendors to develop several cutting-edge data integrity solutions that

prevent silent data corruption. Silent data corruption can occur when invalid data

9 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

is read or written without an I/O error being reported to the application or

operating system. It typically occurs as the result of a component failure or an

administrative mistake. Such errors can be catastrophic for data-centric business

applications and potentially result in extended outages. Oracle engineers have

helped to construct data integrity solutions that follow the T10 Protection

Information (T10 PI) standard, performing integrity checking across the end-to-

end data path—from the application to the operating system, through the switch

and host bus adapter, and to the disk storage device itself. When data is first

written, the solution generates integrity metadata or protection information that

is validated at each stage of the data path. Any detected errors are directed to the

application for remediation. Oracle implements an open source interface to

expose the T10 PI standard to the Linux kernel and end-user applications.

Oracle has qualified T10 PI solutions with third-party storage vendors. The

Oracle Automatic Storage Management library (ASMlib) embeds protection

information in each I/O request that is passed through the layers in the Oracle

Linux operating system and UEK to the HBA driver. The driver verifies data

integrity before forwarding data to the storage device, which revalidates integrity

before writing the data to disk.

High availability with Oracle Clusterware: included with Oracle Linux

Support

Oracle Database applications frequently demand high availability, which is why

Oracle supplies Oracle Clusterware to Oracle Linux Basic and Premier Support

customers at no additional charge. Oracle Clusterware is software that allows

multiple Oracle Linux servers to operate as a single system, providing

redundancy in the event of a hardware or software failure. Each node

communicates through a private interconnect, maintaining a cluster heartbeat

that indicates node availability. The main software components are the Voting

Disk, which records node membership, and the Oracle Cluster Register, which

stores and manages cluster information.

For data centers that deploy Oracle RAC, Oracle Clusterware is used to monitor

and manage the Oracle RAC infrastructure. When a node in an Oracle RAC cluster

is started, all database instances, listeners, and services are automatically started.

If an instance fails, it is automatically restarted. Since Oracle Clusterware is

included as a part of Oracle Linux support, customers can enjoy a single point of

contact for their software infrastructure.

Built-In security and data safeguards

Along with the extensive testing that Oracle Linux undergoes internally for

database applications, the operating system includes advanced enterprise

features to secure access and protect data. Linux receives intense scrutiny from

the open source development community, which yields strong code and ongoing

security enhancements. As a result, Oracle Linux includes robust security

features—IP filtering for firewall capabilities, strong encryption, and military-

grade SELinux mechanisms.

10 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

Many database applications are subject to strict information privacy and

regulatory requirements. For applications that require stringent security, these

Oracle Database options are supported and extensively tested on Oracle Linux:

 Oracle Advanced Security Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), which

enforces data-at-rest encryption in the database layer.

 Oracle Advanced Security Data Redaction, which provides on-the-fly

redaction of sensitive data in SQL query results (prior to display) to

protect sensitive data.

 Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall, which provide controls to

block SQL injection threats and consolidate audit data from databases,

operating systems, and directories.

Simplified virtualized and containerized workloads

Faced with tight budgets and the need for greater agility, many IT organizations

are moving production Oracle Database applications from physical servers to

virtual environments—and taking advantage of the compatibility of Oracle Linux,

deployed either on bare metal or virtual guests.

Oracle simplifies the process of moving applications from physical servers to

virtual guests to a cloud delivery model. Oracle Linux with UEK can be deployed

either on physical servers or on virtual servers with Oracle Linux KVM. It provides

a set of modules that enable you to use the Oracle Linux kernel as a hypervisor to

run virtual machines.

Oracle Applications and Oracle Database are certified on Oracle Linux KVM. To

accelerate time-to-production for virtual environments, Oracle builds and

provides templates for Oracle Linux KVM, an innovative approach to deploying a

fully configured software stack by offering pre-installed and pre-configured

software images. The use of these templates virtually eliminates the installation

and configuration costs, and reduces the ongoing maintenance costs, helping

organizations achieve faster time to market and lower cost of operations.

With many Oracle customers already using containers for applications, providing

Oracle Single Instance Database and Oracle RAC container images was the next

logical step to complement existing application deployments and lay the

foundation for container-based deployments of microservices architectures. In

such environments, Oracle RAC on containers simplifies and accelerates the

deployment of Oracle RAC environments; Oracle RAC databases in containers

can be launched in seconds while containers are portable across machines and

locations. In addition, Oracle RAC on containers benefits from inherent container

characteristics such as low system overhead.

Cloud-ready integrated services

For enterprises considering their journey to the cloud, deploying Oracle Database

on Oracle Linux is the ideal and most cost-effective choice. When users subscribe

to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle Linux Support is provided at no additional

cost. This includes access to the latest packages and updates for Oracle Linux,

24x7 expert Linux support, the My Oracle Support portal with an extensive Linux

knowledge base, Oracle Ksplice zero-downtime kernel and user space updates,

11 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

and the OS Management service to manage Oracle Linux instances. Support is

also included for Oracle Container Registry for trusted Oracle software container

images, including Oracle Runtime Container for Docker and Oracle Linux

Container Services for use with Kubernetes. In addition, deploying Oracle

Database on Oracle Linux, whether on-premises or on Oracle Cloud

Infrastructure, provides a single point of contact for cloud infrastructure, OS, and

Oracle software.

Oracle Linux is a cloud-ready and integrated operating system that enables

easier deployment and migration of Oracle Applications and databases to Oracle

Cloud Infrastructure. Oracle Linux Support on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

provides access to frequent Oracle Linux image updates so that the latest bug

fixes and security errata are readily available. Oracle Database images based on

Oracle Linux and Autonomous Linux are available in the Oracle Cloud

Marketplace, These images allow you to easily deploy a fully functional single

instance database in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure in minutes with just a few clicks.

In addition, the Oracle Linux yum server and Oracle Container Registry are

mirrored inside Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to enable faster downloads of the

latest Oracle Linux bug fixes and security errata, and container images for Oracle

software. Because all network traffic stays within Oracle Cloud data centers, no

internet traffic bandwidth is consumed, and no user network charges are

incurred.

Full-stack manageability

An integrated and consistent set of management tools (rather than an

assortment of multi-vendor tools) can help to increase administrator productivity

and decrease labor costs. Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control provides an

intuitive interface for managing application performance and availability across

the end-to-end Oracle solution stack, including applications, database, systems,

virtual servers, and Oracle Linux. Oracle Enterprise Manager gives administrators

a single-pane-of-glass to deploy and manage Oracle Database workloads on

Oracle Linux—even if those workloads are virtualized using Oracle Linux KVM.

To simplify Oracle Linux patching and updates, Oracle Enterprise Manager for

Linux management is included at no additional charge with an Oracle Linux

Support subscription, which helps reduce infrastructure management costs and

reduce TCO. For Oracle Cloud Infrastructure customers, Oracle Enterprise

Manager Cloud Control is included at no additional cost.

In conjunction with the multitenant capabilities of Oracle Database, Oracle

Enterprise Manager Cloud Control features automation that permits rapid self-

service provisioning of database clouds, saving administrators additional time

and effort. These management features help to pave the way to a cloud-based,

on-demand Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) delivery model.

Rapid deployments

In addition to Oracle Linux KVM Templates, there are a number of other ways in

which Oracle has made it easy to deploy Oracle Database software on Oracle

Linux. The possibilities vary from factory-built, tightly integrated solutions like

Oracle’s engineered systems, to build-your-own validated and documented

12 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

configurations, to software packages that properly configure Oracle Linux

systems for the database software. You can install Oracle Database using a single

RPM. While these options have different advantages, all of them share a similar

benefit, simplifying deployment and expediting time-to-production.

Purpose-built Engineered Systems

Oracle designs engineered systems that are preassembled and pre-integrated to

reduce complexity and speed application deployment. Because Oracle Linux

offers superior performance and enterprise-class features, it is the operating

system embedded in most Oracle engineered systems, including these solutions:

 Oracle Exadata Database Machine. With optimizations specific to

Oracle Database workloads, Oracle Exadata Database Machine is

factory-integrated with Oracle servers, Oracle Linux, storage, and other

software. This engineered system is designed to accelerate Oracle

Database services for large-scale data warehousing and OLTP

applications. Oracle Linux provides extreme scalability for large

engineered systems. For example, in the Oracle Exadata Database

Machine that features up to 6 TB RAM and 192 processor cores per

database server, Oracle Linux scales well to support highly demanding

database workloads.

 Oracle Database Appliance. This appliance is a simple, optimized, and

affordable entry-level engineered system that integrates Oracle

Database, Oracle Linux, Oracle Linux KVM, x86 servers, storage, and

networking. It delivers highly available database services in an off-the-

shelf solution for entry-level database requirements.

 Oracle Private Cloud Appliance. This appliance enables rapid,

repeatable software-defined infrastructure for x86 applications including

database workloads. Customers can go from power on to production

quickly and deploy ready-to-run virtual machines in a matter of minutes.

 Oracle Zero Loss Data Recovery Appliance. This appliance provides

robust protection for Oracle Databases to prevent against data loss.

Backup workloads are offloaded to the appliance, where dedicated

hardware and storage handle backup and recovery tasks in an efficient

manner.

Pre-installation packages and preloaded Oracle Systems

When deploying database applications on Oracle Linux, Oracle Database requires

certain packages, package versions, and kernel parameters. To adhere to best

practices, administrators typically minimize the operating system image,

installing only the minimal number of Oracle Linux packages. Then, they can

apply an Oracle Database pre-installation package to resolve dependencies,

address prerequisites, and configure the kernel prior to database installation.

Oracle offers pre-installation packages for Oracle Database that help to provide a

painless and easily repeatable deployment process.

Applying pre-installation packages to these systems prepares them quickly for

database software installation. When customers purchase an Oracle Premier

Support for Systems or Operating Systems subscription, support for Oracle Linux

is included, yielding a readily available and fully supported database

configuration, resulting in lower total cost of ownership.

13 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

Empowering Database solutions on Oracle Linux

As you begin to document your business goals and determine your best path to

deployment, remember that Oracle Linux can be freely downloaded from the

Oracle Linux yum server, In addition to no-charge software downloads, Oracle

makes all errata for Oracle Linux freely available from the Oracle Linux yum

server—no other commercial Linux vendor provides these updates at no charge.

This means that your administrators can set up a proof-of-concept environment

that includes all released bug and security fixes without initially purchasing a

support contract, allowing you to get started immediately evaluating the benefits

of Oracle Linux for your database infrastructure.

Oracle Linux makes it easy to set up environments using Oracle software and the

tools needed to develop applications with Oracle Database. Oracle Linux provides

packages built specifically for developers and enables the bootstrapping of self-

contained environments. Scripting languages and database connectors are made

available via the Oracle Linux yum server. cx_Oracle is a Python extension

module that allows access to Oracle Database and conforms with the Python

database API specification. PHP repositories contain the latest builds of stable

PHP releases from the community, including the php-oci8 extension to connect

your PHP applications to Oracle Database. The node-oracledb add-on for

Node.js powers high performance Oracle Database applications and can be

used to connect Node.js to Oracle Database. Customers who have Oracle Linux

support and Java SE support from Oracle have access to commercial releases of

Java SE via Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN). In addition, Oracle

launched a GitHub repository for building Vagrant projects with Oracle VM

VirtualBox to provide an easy and automated way of setting up developer

environments with fully configured Oracle software.

To help you implement IT solutions quickly and cost-effectively, Oracle fosters

relationships with industry partners and technology leaders that can help you

develop implementation plans, customize solutions, provide training, and

supplement your internal staffing. The Oracle Linux team works closely with

these partners to develop solutions and tools to deploy and effectively manage

Oracle Database applications on Oracle Linux. Oracle engineers consult with

software partners to help them certify applications on Oracle Linux. Oracle

collaborates with hardware partners to qualify systems, validate drivers, and

optimize performance of Oracle Database on Oracle Linux.

Conclusion

When you deploy Oracle Database on Oracle Linux, you can be confident that

you are deploying on an operating system backed by development teams that

work closely together to optimize performance, enterprise security, and

availability. Because Oracle’s applications, middleware, and database products

are developed on Oracle Linux, you’ll be deploying on the most extensively

tested solution. And with your Oracle Linux Support agreement, your software

environment is backed by the expertise of Oracle’s global 24x7 support

organization, regardless of whether you deploy on certified partner hardware,

Oracle servers, an Oracle engineered solution, or cloud. Additionally, your

support agreement can provide management and high availability solutions at

14 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

no additional charge, which helps to reduce the TCO of your database

infrastructure.

Download a copy of Oracle Linux today from https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-

linux-downloads.html and get started with an evaluation. You can also get

started with Oracle Linux on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure with Oracle Cloud Free

Tier resources to build, test, and deploy applications for free. Contact your Oracle

representative to learn more, or visit http://www.oracle.com/linux.

For more information

WEB RESOURCES

WEB URL

Oracle Linux

http://www.oracle.com/linux

Download Oracle Linux

https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-downloads.html

Oracle Linux KVM templates

https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/rac/vm-db-

templates.html

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

https://cloud.oracle.com/en_US/cloud-

infrastructurehttps://www.oracle.com/cloud/

Table caption 1. This is a caption for the table. It should be less than three sentences.

TECHNICAL PAPERS

WEB URL

Oracle Database Smart Flash Cache

with Oracle Linux

https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/systems-hardware-

architecture/oracle-db-smart-flash-cache-175588.pdf

SAP Applications with Oracle Database

in the Cloud

https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/linux/linux-sap-cloud.pdf

IDC: Enabling Enterprise Digital

Transformation Using Oracle Linux

https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/IDC-DX-US46983920.pdf

Switching to Oracle Linux—A Total

Value Analysis (PDF)

https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/Switching-to-Oracle-Linux-

TI.pdf

DATA SHEETS

WEB URL

Oracle Linux

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15 Technical Brief / Why Oracle Database Runs Best on Oracle Linux / Version 3.0

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