Oracle, not backing down from its Linux power play, recently released a new management tool aimed at enterprise Linux server administrators.

The Oracle Management Pack is a set of server management tools, based on Oracle's Enterprise Manager 10g software. The software allows administrators to apply patches to Linux servers, monitor the performance of servers — such as memory and CPU utilization, and network bandwidth — and configure services and applications running on a set of networked Linux machines.

The Oracle Management Pack is being offered to participants in the vendor's Oracle Unbreakable Linux — an offering, introduced in October, which gives users of Red Hat Linux a lower-cost source for software support, patching, and maintenance for Red Hat Linux servers that run Oracle applications.

Launched in October 2006, Oracle Unbreakable Linux 2.0 costs $99 for a year of Red Hat Linux support services and software updates — compared to the $399 to $999 per year Red Hat itself charges to support its own Linux distribution.

Oracle's reasoning behind the move was users of Oracle apps running on Red Hat Linux would be better served receiving operating system and applications support from the same source. Observers say the move might also be setting the stage for Oracle to introduce its own version of Linux, specially tuned for its applications, although the company maintains it is not in the operating system business. (However, with its Unbreakable Linux offering, analysts say Oracle has essentially created a fork of Red Hat's code, which the Linux vendor says it won't support).