From: Eric Forgette (e4jet@mac.com)
Date: Sun Jul 18 2004 - 17:44:20 EDT
Hi Alison,
I think the motivation for deploying any platform (new or old) should
be "is it the right tool for the job". There are cases where Linux is
faster and more secure than HP-UX/Solaris/AIX/IRIX (etc). Blasphemy!
right? No, not really. Depending on the appliction, small edge
servers with netfilter configured have proven to be much faster, more
secure and cheeper. Clusters seem to be the flavor for back-end work.
Oracle is really pushing linux these days and the published stats seem
to support this.
The initial purchase cost of a platform should defiantly be a
consideration, but probably not the driving factor. I agree with you
that "Sys Admin" time could be a hidden cost, however I have not
experienced this with Linux. Generally speaking, recompiling the
kernel will violate your support agreement (and with loadable modules
many people should never have too). Also, I'd hate to blame an OS for
an application issue (in reference to your difficulty getting freeware
to compile).
My biggest challenge with linux so far has been the lack of network
addressable system consoles (GSP like stuff) and the need to have a
keyboard and monitor on each system. Some hardware vendors are
starting to address this and have been adding GSP like features. HP,
Sun and Dell now offer fairly decent 'lights out management' interfaces
(HP's you pay a little extra for). Currently the system console is
only available using telnet, so you'll need an 'out of band' secure
network to take advantage of these (securely anyway).
We'll be evaluating each deployment on an application by application
basis to determine which OS will be the best fit. I think prior to the
2.4 kernel, linux wasn't quite ready for 'prime time' (plenty will
disagree with me on that), but now I think it is (plenty will disagree
with me on this as well).
Just my $0.02...
-Eric
----
Eric Paul Forgette
http://homepage.mac.com/e4jet/
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