We run a combination of Solaris x86, Sparc and Red Hat media servers.
We use Sparc where our production servers are Sparc as it allows us to perform
snapshots and mount them on the media servers for off-host backups. We use
Solaris x86 on a Sun/Oracle X4500 server using ZFS (box has 48 SATA drives and
6 PCI buses); we tried RH on this box, but Solaris w/ ZFS is 3x faster – 220MB/sec+
sustained over trunked network ports. We then use RH where we either have
less data or need less performance for backups as it helps keep costs down.
Ken
From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu [mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of William Brown
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 9:49 PM
To: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Question about media server OS - Solaris on x86?
We ‘engineered’ – as in wrote the required internal docs – for Solaris x86 a few years back. We found no internal users wanting it. If their s/w was ported to x86 it was to Windows or Linux, not Solaris. We dropped support.
BUT I read on this group of people who converted their RHEL media servers to Solaris x86 just to use ZFS and got a big performance boost compared to staging to EXT3.
So it does depend on what you need. What I would say since Ora¢le took over is to check carefully the ¢ost. It is emphatically not the same as Sun according to others on the Sun Managers group. Another aspect is your in-house knowledge; we have a number of staff with many years Solaris knowledge and a few staff with a few years RHEL knowledge; that delta has a cost.
You have to weigh these up. I would also be interested to see what others on this forum who are Sun SPARC users think about the future.
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