Networker

Re: [Networker] Merits of Linux and Solaris

2004-02-16 21:44:13
Subject: Re: [Networker] Merits of Linux and Solaris
From: Yura Pismerov <ypismerov AT TUCOWS DOT COM>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:15:37 -0500
It is getting an off-topic. :)


Matthew Huff wrote:

Matthew Huff wrote:




There are plenty of peek times that stress a backup server. For example,
say you have 3 groups that start a backup around the same time. The peak
network, disk i/o, etc can push a machine.




Right, but it would rather indicate poor design or improper backup
scheduling issue, and it is manageable.



It is sufficient to make a little research before purchasing
hardware to make sure it does work well under Linux. Simple
"googling" should not take much time. In Solaris, the
hardware is either supported (works) or it is not (does not
work at all) - nothing in the middle. Unlike free/open
unises, where it might be in "almost working" state, but, on
the other hand, there is always hardware that "does work
well", so it is just a matter of finding one.  The only thing
I agree with it does not make much sense to change OS
platform for existing backup server, unless we are talking
about significant difference in the price for Legato license
(hence support costs since they are a fraction of the price).




How much money are you saving if you have to spend time "finding one"?
I've seen sysadmin that love Linux but seem to spend all their waking
moments resolving hardware issues.


I don't think it is about loving/hating particular OS.
In most systems, if you take right approach, it is "set it and forget
it" scenario.
You just pick one of known as well working combinations.
There is usually plenty of relevant info that can be found on the Net
about those "combinations".
Yes, I know sometimes you are forced to make work some things that are
not supposed to work together, but those cases are rare and out of scope
of this thread.
From my experience, I don't recall if I had to deal with recurring
issues after the initial setup is done.
And so is true not only for free OS, but for Solaris, and any other
system (of course I leave aside various technology flaws and bugs).





Also, if you end up buying a "Certified System" such as an


IBM server


with RHEL, the cost is usually GREATER than equivelent sparc systems



I don't have much experience with IBM, but I do know that, for example
Dell, support is reasonable priced.
As for OS choice, it is very debatable, but I personally would not pay
for RedHat (or other commercial Linux) support, *unless*
there is explicit vendor's requirement that forces you to run product on
particular flavor of Linux.
But even that does not make much sense in most cases and I see more and
more people abandoning RedHat and turning Debian even
for running products that are to be running on commercial flavors (for
proper vendor support).

Again, I am not that type of geeks that would run everything on
Linux/FreeBSD just because it is cool and free.
And I don't want to run any more-less mission critiacal applications on
clone/junk/non-redundant/etc. hardware - it is just not worth it.
But I don't mind to save a few bucks for the company I work for by not
going for commercial products wherever is possible.
In my opinion there must be reasonable approach for choosing OS platform
for particular application, and there is nothing
wrong with running heterogeneous environment as long as the systems are
doing what they were designed for.
I hope I did not say anything new here :)




You should also count recurring costs, ie. how much money you
are spending for  warranty/support renewing. AFAIK Sun
equipment is still more expensive in compare to Intel based
servers at this point.



From what I've seen of IBM/RHEL ongoing support cost, it looks like Sun
is considerably cheaper.

Of course, if you choose a no-name rack server and use Fedora, Gentoo,
Slackware, or SuSE, you can save a lot of money. Of course, that "free"
only if your time is worth nothing. I've seen small sites and cheap
institutions choose to use fixed-cost items (people's salaries) rather
than spend capitol. In many ways, this is economically silly. First, you
can depreciate/write-off capitol expenditures. Second, few places figure
the cost of having people do tasks they could avoid rather than work on
projects that would benefit the organization more.

Of course if your are in an institution where money is tight and have
people sitting around doing nothing, than "free" software is a great
bargain. Of course, having people sitting around doing nothing is a rare
commodity these days.



--
Matthew Huff           | One Manhattanville Rd
Director of Operations | Purchase, NY 10577
OTA LLC                | Phone: 914-460-4039
mailto:mhuff AT ox DOT com    | Fax:   914-460-4139





-----Original Message-----
From: Stan Horwitz [mailto:stan AT TEMPLE DOT EDU]
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2004 10:41 PM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: [Networker] Merits of Linux and Solaris


Hello all;

There's some talk here at Temple about migrating from proprietary
operating systems to open operating systems. We're seriously
considering standardizing the University on Red Hat Linux.

I am wondering if any of you who run a Legato NetWorker server on a
Red Hat Linux platform can comment on your experience with


it. Would


you do it again if you had the choice? What's your NetWorker
environment like?

We use Solaris 9 on an Enterprise 450 with NetWorker 6.1.3


and about


110 clients with about 3TB of data backed up nightly.  We are
considering getting another server and tape library for a


storage node


to handle anticipated growth in the volume of data we will


be backing


up and to keep more data online. Our NetWorker server has a


Qualstar


tape library with 600 slots and twelve AIT-2 drives, four


of which are


deployed via SnapImage for NDMP backups (no drive sharing).
As such, one fly in the ointment for us is that SnapImage
isn't offered for Linux. Has anyone on this list heard if
there are any plans on Legato's part to offer a Linux version
of SnapImage?

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--
Yuri Pismerov, Sr. System Administrator,
TUCOWS.COM INC. (416) 535-0123  ext. 1352


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