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.
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. You get the same support you would expect from
any commercial OS-vendor. And plenty of applications have been certified,
including Oracle. In my opinion, sun sparc hardware is just not worth the
money anymore. You don't get enough bang for the buck. I think that sun
has realized this at last, and launched a cheaper x86-based server
platform. However, I fail to see the point. Nobody is interested in
running solaris x86, unless they have some very obscure reasons. Its just
not as good as linux on the x86 platform. And why buy sun x86 hardware,
when you can get rock-solid HP or Dell x86 servers for a fair price as
well? I also think that some people may overestimate the stability of sun
hardware as well. I mean, who doesn't remember that nasty ECache bug and
the constant lockups that some Netra-servers had?
TTJ> I am very weary of using Linux/xBSD as backup servers. There is too much
TTJ> that needs to work together. Too much that can break. I don't want to fool
TTJ> around finding workarounds for drivers that break.
That can be said about any platform that is used for backups. What it all
comes down to is: "Is it supported?"
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.
HOWEVER, in this particular case, the lack of SnapImage for linux x86 is
the biggest reason for not switching platforms. And a show-stopper in
general, both for us and for Stan, since we have been thinking about the
same thing. Legato, please port SnapImage. :)
//Oscar
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