Oracle is throwing its Clusterware software at its paying Unbreakable Linux support customers for free. Unbreakable Linux being Oracle’s controversial year-old version of Red Hat, which it now claims has won 2,000 customers.

Previously only part of Oracle’s Real Applications Clusters (RAC) widgetry, Clusterware is portable cluster software that groups together individual servers so they can cooperate as a single system.

It can operate independently and help protect an application, be it Oracle’s own or a third party’s.

It’s a high availability facilitator for databases and applications managed in a cluster environment, stuff like Oracle Single Instance Databases, Oracle Application Servers, Oracle Enterprise Manager components, third-party databases and other applications.

Besides its Clusterware heritage, it’s based on the Cluster File System version 2 that Oracle contributed to the Linux kernel effort in 2006.

Oracle’s cluster solutions for Linux can be utilized together or separately as required.

According to Oracle, the move makes Unbreakable Linux one of the first fully supported clustering solutions available for Linux – not counting Red Hat, HP and IBM among others – and is supposed to prove Oracle’s “commitment to advancing Linux through technology enhancements and enterprise-quality Linux support” that make Linux more scalable, available, cost-effective and simply a better enterprise platform.

One would think it’s meant to entice more users to the Unbreakable Linux fold.