Around 7 000 delegates are gathered in Paris for Oracle World 2003, including 2 000 representatives of Oracle partners.
Oracle Europe, Middle East and Africa executive VP Sergio Giacoletto and VP Chuck Phillips today welcomed delegates and gave a brief introduction to grid computing and Oracle`s family of 10g products, which were announced last month and expected to be commercially available by the end of the year.
Giacoletto spoke about the rapid increase in the demand for access to information as evidenced by the fact that there are around 650 million Internet users around the world. He told delegates that with Oracle 10g, it was now theoretically possible to store and manage the world`s information, reckoned by the experts to soon equal the number of grains of sand at the bottom of the world`s oceans.
Phillips gave Oracle`s definition of grid computing as using many small servers to act as one large computer. "Oracle 10g represents a delivery system that will revolutionise the way businesses do business."
He illustrated the rationale of Oracle grid computing by giving the example of a typical retailer whose servers, running order entry and financial applications, would peak at different times. He demonstrated that by clustering these two servers and managing load balancing, greater efficiency could be achieved.
Phillips said the process of converting to grid computing involved consolidation, standardisation and automation. According to Gartner, this process alone could result in as much as a 10% saving for any data centre.
To illustrate the cost savings made possible by grid computing, Phillips pointed out that applications would not have to change, there was a pay-as-you go option, and greater levels of automation and productivity were possible.
Phillips told delegates it was an opportune time for grid computing because of the unprecedented pressure to lower costs, combined with technological solutions provided by inexpensive commodity blade servers, inexpensive operating systems such as Linux, and storage area networks. "Oracle grid computing brings it all together," he said. "Applications, databases and storage managed by grid control."
Giacoletto concluded the opening session by saying this week`s Oracle World would focus on Oracle 10g, grid computing, and their ability to drive down IT costs, enabling IT managers to meet the demand of doing more with less.
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