In regard to: Re: [Networker] Merits of Linux and Solaris, Oscar Olsson...:

>On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Tarjei T. Jensen wrote:
>
>TTJ> Stan Horwitz wrote:
>TTJ> >As such, one fly in the
>TTJ> >ointment for us is that SnapImage isn't offered for Linux. Has anyone on
>TTJ> >this list heard if there are any plans on Legato's part to offer a Linux
>TTJ> >version of SnapImage?
>TTJ> I would be more concerned about the server package as a whole. Things like
>TTJ> support. The value of things just working.
>
>Considering the cost of hardware, and the availability of hardware, plus
>the speed of the hardware compared to equivalent SPARC hardware, an x86 or
>IA64 based platform seems very appealing.

Dollar-for-dollar there's no question that an Intel box will beat a
comparably priced SPARC in CPU performance.  How Sun's been "king" with
such an anemic CPU for so many years still baffles me.

Still, when you're talking about a backup server, I/O bandwidth is just
as important as CPU power.  Getting comparably equipped *I/O* in an Intel
box often erases any price difference.

>Also, that argument is old and maybe not even valid any more. Linux has
>been just as stable, but faster, if it has been configured correctly. WIth
>the 2.6 kernel series, that will probably be even more true in the future.
>The problem has been support for the OS and application vendor
>certification. In my opinion, this has been solved now since RedHat
>enterprise linux is around.

:-)  Have you actually *used* RH EL?  We're using it on about 40 boxes
and will be migrating an additional 30+ from older RH and homegrown Linux
distributions to RH ES, and I can't say that ES has "solved" all the
problems of the world.  In fact, ES 3 has caused all sorts of problems in
our environment.  We've had to downgrade several of our servers to ES 2.1.
It's great that Oracle (et. al.) is certified on ES 3, but if you're
running something other than Oracle on the box and the box periodically
hangs, that Oracle certification doesn't really mean much.

> You get the same support you would expect from
>any commercial OS-vendor.

For roughly the same price.

>In the linux scenario (done right): The server hardware is supported by
>the hardware vendor. The OS is fully supported by the OS vendor (like RH
>ES), and this fact gets the SCSI drivers certified as well, if you have a
>certified SCSI card. If the application vendor (in this case Legato)
>supports the software on that OS, you are just as covered as when using
>Sun or equivalent. But you have waay better performance for the same money
>than you would have had if you would use sun hardware.

But, "for the same money", as you put it, with Sun or any other
proprietary vendor, you can get the hardware and the software from one
vendor and eliminate the fingerpointing that happens when your hardware
vendor differs from your software vendor.

I'm not anti-Linux (or pro-Sun -- in fact I don't really care for Sun),
and I agree with you *in principle*, but your arguments seem to describe
a world that's different from the one I've experienced.

Tim
--
Tim Mooney                              mooney AT dogbert.cc.ndsu.NoDak DOT edu
Information Technology Services         (701) 231-1076 (Voice)
Room 242-J6, IACC Building              (701) 231-8541 (Fax)
North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105-5164

--
Note: To sign off this list, send a "signoff networker" command via email
to listserv AT listmail.temple DOT edu or visit the list's Web site at
http://listmail.temple.edu/archives/networker.html where you can
also view and post messages to the list.
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=