MySQL AB announced in August that it is porting MySQL AB to Linux on POWER platforms.

Oracle announced December 17 production-release availability of the Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1.03) Client for Power/Linux. This is capable of running on Linux for POWER processor-based servers in IBM’s eServer line: iSeries, pSeries, OpenPower and BladeCenter.

Sybase announced that it’s putting its Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) RDBMS on Linux-specific OpenPower machines.

Sybase, in particular, caught Open's eyes: In July 2003, we interviewed Dr. Raj Nathan, senior vice president and general manager, about the nimble Sybase, traditionally behind Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle database kingpins but nonetheless holding its own with a solid customer base. That was the year Sybase also announced that, like IBM, it was taking a Linux “competency center” route in New York,  and intending to port all its software to Linux by the following year.

Sybase sources, in assessing the impact of the competency center move on the company, declare that "The Sybase Linux Center in New York has enabled many of Sybase's major FSI customers to develop and implement their Linux strategies and implementations over the last 18 months."

FSI? The acronym stands for Financial Services Industry. Therein lies a key strength of Sybase and a pointer to its decision to port to Linux on the POWER platform. The Sybase web site speaks directly to Wall Street: "In  mission-critical financial environments, Sybase technology has proven itself indispensable. We offer highly secure, real-time, high-availability, integrated financial solutions that will help increase your organization’s ROI and competitive position. We work with more than 200 of the world’s largest financial institutions. In  fact, our technology powers 90 percent of the world’s securities firms and 60 percent of its banks."

For database vendors who can harness the right tools and the speak to the right platforms, the financial-services pain is vendor gain: The financial service business confronts the fundamental challenge to adhere to a trustworthy information system for transactions and recordkeeping as never before. Consider some of Sybase customer names: Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DKW), Reuters, Global Card Services. What's more, financial-services customers depend on the ASE database for very high throughput levels in OLTP settings, and they recognize ASE's ability to scale in SMP systems.

Sybase, which prides itself as the first RDBMS for Linux (1998), provides a free download of ASE for Linux on 32-bit X86 architecture. In December, Sybase announced that it too was stepping up to the Linux on POWER plate by making its flagship database able to run on POWER5 microprocessor-based OpenPower systems—a way for both IBM and Sybase to woo businesses seeking the lowest-cost, enterprise-class, database applications on Linux.

The two companies are to market and sell the products jointly. Both IBM's Global Services  and Sybase Professional Services are going to pool service offerings too, in extending their resources and expertise for customers. What's in it for Sybase, and how does it impact its ability to keep its financial customers happy? Says David Jacobson, Senior Director of Marketing, Information Technology Solutions Group, at Sybase:

"The mission-critical database systems of the world's largest financial services organizations demand enterprise-class performance, support, and services with less cost. Sybase ASE has the lowest entry price of any enterprise database on Linux. Sybase ASE has the lowest TCO of any enterprise database on Linux. Sybase ASE on Linux leverages existing people and resources."

Sound familiar? IBM's 64-bit OpenPower servers, optimized for Linux-only and priced accordingly, appeals to the same wish list. "This partnership represents a strategic alignment of purpose and resources to provide low-cost, proven enterprise-class database capabilities and services optimized for the OpenPower Linux platform, " says Jacobson, "with enterprise-quality manageability, high-performance, scalability, availability, and security."

Features and Functions

Jacobson lists highlights of features and functions in the latest version of Sybase ASE:

Enhanced operational scalability to support tougher workloads with fewer resources

Better security integration with corporate authentication systems

Smart SQL statement cache

Advanced web services support

Improved scalability for applications on 32-bit and 64-bit Linux

Again, this plays right into the needs of the financial sector. Jacobson is pitching what happens when Sybase ASE is used with another Sybase product, RTDS. If that acronym sounds very 'Wall Street,'  and "trading systems," it is. Sybase Real-Time Data Services can deliver data to consuming applications via a message bus. It supports a number of messaging systems including IBM WebSphere MQ and TIBCO Rendezvous. Use of the message bus means there is no need to develop point-to-point interfaces. "For users that depend on real-time changes to critical business information, the Sybase ASE Real-Time Message Services functionality provides real-time alerts and notification, and gives them instant access to these changes," says Jacobson.

IBM, meanwhile, has made no secret out of the fact that it is aggressively seeking momentum to grow Linux on the POWER platform across its pSeries family of eServers. The alliance with Sybase over a database that's well received in the financial-services sector is the right strategic move, even if IBM does have its own significant database competencies, namely DB2.

Even more intriguing for the growing alliance is the new Sybase deal with the Bank of China—we're talking multimillions. Bank of China is one of the world's top banks and will be calling on Financial Fusion, a subsidiary of Sybase, for a technology platform to drive its online banking services.

Is there any room there for Sybase ASE database on Linux and OpenPower?  "As Sybase rolls out the ASE product on Open Power in Q1, we will be previewing it to all of our major financial customers including Bank of China," says Jacobson.