• Created: 2005-10-08 by SivanGreen

• Priority: NeedsPriority

• People: NeedsLead, NeedsSecond

• Contributors:
• Interested:

• Status: UbzSpecification, BrainDump (then DraftSpecification then EditedSpecification then ApprovedSpecification), DistroSpecification

• Branch: UbuntuTrack

• Malone bug:
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• BoF sessions: none yet

Summary

Ubuntu support for common market technologies. Making Ubuntu an official certified platform for software products from respective vendors. (IBM, Oracle etc..)

Rationale

As Ubuntu is becoming more spread, and as the next release is going to be supported for a longer period and cater for enterprise installations and usage, we need to make Ubuntu a rocking platform for using enterprise grade software products like application servers, various database server, propriety development platforms etc. Other distributions like RHEL and SLES already support a wide range of this software selection. In order to become competition, we have to support those as well.

Use cases

• Joe is a DBA in a big organizatoin using IBM's DB2 to store and manage the organization's online store data. He is currently using RHEL3 as the platform running DB2 server on top. He would like to switch to Ubuntu, due to its wide selection of software and ease of software management. However Ubuntu is not a supported platform for DB2.
• Kate is developing a web application that is going to pull data of her comapny's Oracle 10g server, she's currently restricted to using SLES9 at work, but at home where she does most of the development she use Ubuntu. She would like to be able to test her changes against a local Oracle database before testing against the master db. She tries installing Oracle on Ubuntu, but Oracle's installer exits with the message that is supports only RHEL3/SLES9 etc..
• Major applications are sometimes Desktop/Workstation based. This includes Matlab, Mathematica, ProE, etc.

• HPC clusters may need working Portland Group Compilers or Intel Compilers. Last I(ScottDier) checked the Intel Debugger for Intel Fortran does not work on Hoary (haven't tried breezy yet). I've sent them a bug with no response at this point, but it may be a sticking point for HPC users.

• Put your favorite enterprise grade technology here.

Scope

We need to prioritize which products/technologies we wish to get certified with. Possibly asking current / prospective customers could be a good idea, with ofcourse educated guess for some well known stuff like, or from browing the mailing lists for specific requests.

Design

• After prioritizing is done, we can assign a contact per each product. This person should act as the connecting point between the vendor's contact and Ubuntu.
• This person should propogate vendor's inqueries to the distro and vice versa.
• Carry out what needs be done for getting a certification.
• When done and approved, an appropriate press release should follow, indicating the version and the scenarios of the product that are supported.

Implementation

The outlined process should be more or less the same for a product X of a vendor Y:

1. Establish point of contact within the vendor organization for providing certification and verification tools. Ideally, we would have one for administrative purposes , and one as a technical specialist to help carry out the tests.
2. Execute the required test suite(s) on a matching matrix of supported platforms for both the distro and the product and produce test logs.
3. If all the tests are successful, send logs and test results to the vendor's technical contact for verification.

4. If results were verified go to step (4), if not try and address issues together with the technical contact and start over from step (1)->(3) until done.

5. Publish a press release about the certified product, in sync with the respective vendor. Ideally, provide a couple of past beta testers that have successful testimonials.

Code

• Each vendor test scripts code:
  • - Bash scripts. - C test programs. - SQL statements.

• On selected product in which we will provide out of the box support, wrapper code and packaging on top each products installation system. (see Db2OnUbuntu)

Data preservation and migration

• Preserve previous possible non official installation data of a specific product.
• Try to keep policy guidelines and patch installers to use paths that conform with policy.

Outstanding issues

• Hardware - We need to get/borrow the full range of hardware a products supports. Maybe check with people see who has what? (x86,x86-64(amd/intel),ppc64)

BoF agenda and discussion