Tue, 2015-08-18 15:06dion_cornett_gThe Convergence of Enterprise-Class and Choice – an Open Source Ecosystem Running on a True Enterprise-Class Platform: MariaDB Enterprise on IBM z Systems

While selling free software sounds like a hard job, the growing mainstream adoption of open source makes it one of the most exciting segments in IT. In my daily meetings with customers, there is no ambiguity that open source is the foundation for the hottest trends in technology, including Cloud, Analytics, Mobile and Social. Gartner reports that 70% of all new applications are built using an open source database. (1)

Yet until now, many customers had to make compromises related to leveraging the innovation, high-quality code, lower costs, and choice inherent in open source, versus leveraging highly secure, scalable and power efficient enterprise-class z Systems offered by IBM.

Today at LinuxCon North America that changes. We at MariaDB Corporation are proud to be part of a new ecosystem with IBM that enables MariaDB Enterprise to run on Linux on z Systems as well as on the new IBM LinuxONE. MariaDB on z Systems extends our current enterprise-level open source offerings, which deliver Community-driven innovation and a comprehensive value proposition; combined with performance, high availability and security at web-scale.

Benefits to Our Customers

Choice – Now, with the availability of MariaDB Enterprise on z Systems, clients can have the best of both worlds—an open source ecosystem running on a true enterprise-class platform.

Security – The world-class security of IBM z Systems, when combined with the hyper-secure community-driven innovations within MariaDB, provide unparalleled protection against a growing IT threat environment.

Extensibility – Joining with IBM on z Systems, MariaDB is now able to offer customers the only open source enterprise database platform that runs from x86 and Power to Mainframe and Cloud.

Consolidation – The ability to scale MariaDB with IBM’s industry-leading mainframe virtualization technologies means clients can easily consolidate clusters with many servers on one mainframe. MariaDB on IBM z Systems can host more servers per core than any other system with high-speed encryption, disaster recovery, and continuous availability capabilities,hereby also saving electricity, cooling and management costs.

Future-Proofing Your Database Investment –The customer’s database investment whether on premises, SaaS or Cloud is protected. Moreover, a true open source development model means that the latest innovations can always be incorporated. MariaDB will support the customer’s needs no matter the direction they choose, all without vendor lock-in.

"As the ONE default database platform for leading Linux distributors, including Red Hat and SUSE, MariaDB is excited to support IBM LinuxONE,” stated Patrik Sallner, CEO of MariaDB. “With Linux on IBM z Systems growing at twice the rate of the Linux market overall, there is clear customer demand for open source solutions on IBM’s highly scalable and secure platform. These qualities align perfectly with MariaDB’s true open source model, which leverages Community innovations to provide best-in-class scalability, improved performance, and security, for on-premise, hybrid and cloud applications.”

MariaDB Enterprise on IBM z Systems (LinuxONE) will be available later this calendar year.

MariaDB Community Server on z Systems

The MariaDB community version runs out of the box on Linux on z Systems. You can install MariaDB 5.x through Yum on RHEL or Zypper on SLES. See the Installation guide for MariaDB 10.x (https://github.com/linux-on-ibm-z/docs/wiki/Building-MariaDB-10.0). MariaDB Inc. and IBM are working together to bring MariaDB Enterprise to z Systems.

For more information, go to https://mariadb.com

More about the IBM partnership, go to, http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/47474.wss

1. Gartner, The State of Open-Source RDBMSs, 2015, Donald Feinberg, Merv Adrian, April 21, 2015

Tags: MariaDB Enterprise About the Author

Dion Cornett is VP Global Sales at MariaDB and was previously VP Sales Strategy at Red Hat.