Oracle seeks to accelerate enterprise MySQL cloud deployment with VM Templates

Oracle is looking to speed up the deployment of MySQL within enterprises and in the cloud with the release of VM Templates, in an effort to dramatically cut IT managers' workloads.

The templates combine Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 6 with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, Oracle VM 2.2.1 and VM Manager 2.1.5, along with Cluster File System 2 and MySQL Database 5.5.10.

Templates are available for Oracle Applications, Fusion Middleware, Database, Linux, Solaris and other Oracle products.

"Oracle is committed to helping MySQL users more efficiently deploy and manage high-performance web and cloud-based applications at a lower cost," said Tomas Ulin, vice president of MySQL engineering at Oracle.

"Customers can benefit from a fully integrated solution that is backed by Oracle support, enabling faster deployments, increased reliability and higher uptime for MySQL applications in virtualised environments."

Oracle said that the templates could take hours off the deployment of virtual machines, particularly in cloud environments, and that the system is designed to be highly fault tolerant in order to keep support costs low.

Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, told V3.co.uk that, while the theory behind the offering is sound, companies should be wary of moving to some of the industry's least used platforms.

"Automating MySQL configuration processes in virtualised environments should help Oracle customers deploy solutions more quickly while reducing potential errors. That's all to the good," he said.

"But the underlying environments that these new solutions are optimised for - Oracle Linux and Oracle Virtualisation - are among the industry's least used, particularly outside Oracle's client base."

King added that doing so could put companies at risk of being too connected with Oracle, making it harder to leave the firm in the future.

"Adopting them will tie customers even more closely to the company," he said.

"That may be a fine state of affairs for some, but it is unlikely to be greeted with much enthusiasm by businesses that are rethinking their Oracle relationships or considering working more closely with other vendors."

Oracle has put a lot of development time into MySQL, in part allaying fears in the open source community by the closure of OpenSolaris.

The company has updated MySQL regularly, particularly focusing on Windows deployments, and analysts see it as an important part of Oracle's future business.