Oracle linux install

CN railway first in Canada to run Oracle on Linux

Linux got a shot in the arm recently when the Canadian National Railway Co. (CN) announced plans to run new and existing Oracle databases on the operating system.

"We were looking for a newer database system that was specifically Web aware," says David Livingstone, senior operations officer at CN. "We're going to be putting applications up that are going to have Web interfaces and I wanted a database that has that ability built in."

Currently CN has a number of legacy systems running on Informix, but Livingstone says the company decided not to stick with Informix because, from CN's perspective, Informix had not adapted to the Internet.

CN has decided to replace its aging legacy systems with Oracle8 and intends to migrate to Oracle8i when it becomes available.

The company will also install Oracle's Application Server 4.0 on Linux.

"I went with Linux because we have Linux running any number of other systems and its a very reliable system," says Livingstone. Linux is designed to run on Intel-based PCs and Internet servers, and is considered by many in the industry to be a low-- cost alternative to Windows NT. "The other selling point on Linux are the development tools that come with it," says Livingstone. "Plus the support we get from the user community in terms of using these tools is far better than I've had from any supplier."

CN will also use Oracle Developer, Oracle's application development tool, to create additional custom applications to be deployed by Linux.

With headquarters in Montreal, CN operates Canada's largest railroad system with more than 13,740 route miles of track in Canada and the United States.

The company is in the development stage of this project. The first department to migrate its database will be Signals and Communications. Among the other applications planned within the department, the initial development priorities include a radio inventory, a vital inventory which monitors all vital rail safety components in the field and the Wheel Impact Load Detection system (WILD). WILD measures the impact of train wheels at the rail and is intended to proactively detect any wheel defects, thus preventing train derailments.

"So we will bring the site information back to the system that will be running with Oracle - not on the system that is currently running, but on another system we have currently purchased," explains Livingstone. "That will store all the data, millions of records every year onto an Oracle database. And we'll produce timely reports from that which will be sent to our customers."

He anticipates the project will be completed within the year, however CN is waiting for some Linux development tools from Oracle. The vendor has also pushed back its Oracle8i delivery date a couple of times in recent months, casting speculation as to whether the job will be completed by the end of 1999. CN's longterm goal is to deploy the Oracle-based application directly to internal users, who will require only a Web browser, eliminating the need for client-specific applications.

According to Lucie Girard, Oracle's director of sales consulting in Montreal, CN is the first Canadian company to run an Oracle database on the Linux operating system.