Oracle welcomes Linux users with support site crash

So very breakable

By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View • Get more from this author

Posted in IT Director, 30th October 2006 17:21 GMT

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Oracle today dished out a rude awakening to the Linux users it hopes to support over the long-haul. Its MetaLink support site crashed.

"Oracle Metalink (support website) has been virtually unusable all day," wrote in one Reg reader.

And, sure enough, a trip over to Oracle's site reveals the following message: "Urgent: Potential Performance and Login Problems - Please note that due to heaver than normal activity during peak hours, you may experience performance and login related issues. This is a temporary situation that we are working to resolve." The site took ages to load as of 9 a.m. on the West Coast.

A number of you have wondered how well Oracle can handle the Linux support burden. In particular, many of wondered whether a company that's slow to hand out security patches can keep up with the Linux update rat race.

Today's support site showing doesn't bode well for Oracle's attempt to steal customers from Red Hat. You may pay half as much for Oracle support, but what kind of victory is that if you get half the service?

Of course, Red Hat has suffered through a recent cock-up of its own. Its download site for Fedora Core 6 crashed leaving plenty of users stranded.

Seems like the options for Linux users these days are running pretty thin.®

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