Oracle enters the appliance market

but couldn't they name it any better? Exadata ???? Ughhh . How terribly original?  I wonder how Teradata, Neteeza and the EMC folks will respond to this and how Oracle's going to use its might to get penetration into the market.

Could IBM be far behind? When is DB2's version coming up? Given that DB2 seems to follow Oracle every step, can we expect IBM to do something similar? This is a smart move by Oracle though and should help it from at least losing data warehouse implementations to the appliance vendors.  I was not terribly impressed by Oracle Warehouse Builder (what a nightmare to install, configure and just get to code) or Discoverer, but with the acquisition of Siebel and Hyperion and integrating them into their new Business Intelligence suite, this should help Oracle even more in their play for the market. Expect to see more bundles being thrown at customers to hit the smaller players on the pricing front. 

Here's the story.

The product family consists of two components.

HP Oracle Database Machine is pre-configured for performance, pre- tuned, and certified for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition tools and Oracle Real Application Clusters. Complete configurations can be ordered from Oracle, with hardware support by HP. The HP Oracle Database Machine is a high-performance system configured for data warehousing that includes a grid of eight database servers featuring: 64 Intel processor cores, and Oracle Enterprise Linux; and a grid of 14 Oracle Exadata Storage Servers that include up to 168 terabytes of raw storage and 14 GB/sec data bandwidth to the database servers.

HP Oracle Exadata Storage Servers are key performance enablers for the database machine and can be ordered separately if customers have an existing data warehouse and merely require the storage enhancements. Customers can build data warehousing solutions using HP Oracle Exadata Storage Servers, which feature industry-standard components including two Intel processors, up to 12 TB of raw storage and InfiniBand connectivity delivering 1 GB/sec of data bandwidth per storage server.

The HP Oracle Exadata Storage Server uses a massively parallel architecture to dramatically speed up Oracle data warehouses by shifting the data-intensive part of query processing away from Oracle Database Servers and closer to the data.

HP Oracle Exadata Storage Servers deliver 10x or more performance improvements in data-intensive query processing, have virtually unlimited I/O scalability, are easier to optimize for data warehousing, and provide mission-critical availability and reliability.

And here's the most interesting part - "No changes are required to existing queries or business intelligence applications to deliver extreme performance for large Oracle data warehouses. " I am looking forward to seeing how it works out in practice.

The link

The immigration process explained

in a simple flowchart. The particulars are complicated as hell with the rules seeming to change by the day with no one seeming to know just what the current situation is at a given time.

Here's where I am or rather where I will in about 7 months time. At the beginning of a long drawn out process with a ton of paperwork to fill involving all the people I have worked for before. Not a fun thing to but a necessary evil nonetheless.

Given that I am just starting the process next year, it is gonna be a long while for me to get the prized Green Card. One stage at a time, one slow long drawn stage at a time to become a permanent resident.

World's Larget Ice Cream Social

Free ice cream, and for a good cause too. Please pass this around.

Throughout the month of September, Cold Stone Creamery will be selling Make-A-Wish wall stars to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation, an organization that grants wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions. Be sure to visit your local Cold Stone Creamery to try two new flavors, Nutter Butter^® and Marshmallow, and the very special “Make-A-Wish Creations” inspired by Jack and Emily, two Wish Children.

• Jack's Creation - Marshmallow ice cream with OREO® Cookies, Chocolate Chips and Fudge
• Emily's Creation - Nutter Butter® ice cream with White Chocolate Chips, Kit Kat® and Yellow Cake

To cap off this special month, don't miss the 7th Annual World’s Largest Ice Cream Social at participating Cold Stone Creamery locations nationwide, a special night to join together and share the simple pleasures of life with a FREE ice cream and family fun. On September 25th from 5:00 - 8:00PM, guests will be treated to a 3 oz. serving of Jack or Emily's Creation. All donations will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Is there anything more frustrating than this?

Final score	Liverpool	0 – 0 (HT 0 – 0)	Stoke City
Bookings	Skrtel 85		Fuller 90

	Liverpool's Percentage	Stoke City's Percentage
Corners	20   86%	3   14%
Goal attempts	27   90%	3   10%
On target	11   84%	2   16%
Fouls	8     44%	10  56%
Offside	1     25%	3    75%

The above is analysis I found on the Guardian for the Liverpool Stoke game. Dear Lord, 27 attempts at goal and not a single one went in?It looks like Liverpool bossed over the game, did everything but score. and I guess  the only thing they can draw solace from is that Stoke did not sneak in a goal. The stats look more like one of Arsena's exercises in futility. Work so hard, win corners, lord over the field, corner all posession - but not score a goal.

It drives the fan nuts as you are out there believing a breakthrough is imminent any moment even to the final second only to be deflated. The fact these are gimme points and that too at your home field makes it really painful. Liverpool fans, I feel your pain though I can't help be happy over the fact that it is one challenger less if you keep this up.

How do you go from beating Manyoo to this? I guess this is what they call a letdown, again something all too familiar to me as an Arsenal fan. I guess this is what separates us from Manyoo and Chelsea - the ability to win games they are shitty in.

Update on Saturday, September 20, 2008 at 12:21 by Samuel Selvan

Just found out that Gerrard had a goal disallowed unfairly. Talk about adding insult to injury.

A talking whale

Found this on BBC America today. No, not a circus trick, but a Japanese researcher has managed to train a Beluga to speak.  It can right now speak three 'words'.

That's a really beautiful Beluga. Wonder why Sarah Palin doesn't want or could not want them protected. When will these folks feel some kind of shame and remorse over what they are doing to these animals? Sigh!