IBM Wants Linux 464
jsse writes "In a news conference IBM's senior vice president Steve Mills said 'the company will gladly drop its version of Unix from servers and replace it with Linux if the software matures so that it can handle the most demanding tasks.' Now the Giant, along with many other companies, jump to Linux bandwagon. The question is wether this bandwagon is capable of carrying a Giant that huge. Or the question is: can Linux beats AIX?"
Jump on the bandwagon? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Jump on the bandwagon? (Score:2)
The problem is that the largest expense of software manufacturing is paying for development (R&D). This cost has to be passed on to customers and remains fixed regardless of how many units are sold. This means that there is cost associated with each unit sold which goes down as more units are sold and up as less (Embodied R and D = total R and D / total units sold). This is what has made Microsoft successful in many areas of the market, and it is a failing point for most versions of UNIX. This means that if you buy an NT server, it has less embodied R&D than if you buy an AIX machine.
If Linux could be up to the challenge, it would diffuse the R&D costs by diffusing the R&D, thus making any company who adopted it more competitive. IBM is making the right choices here from a business perspective and (with the exception of CPRM development) becoming more of a present ally for open source.
and the answer is? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:and the answer is? (Score:3, Funny)
My $.02 (Score:5, Informative)
Well, as a SysAdmin who manages 50 AIX servers and 20 Solaris servers I can try to offer some info.
As has been written in a couple of posts already, AIX is designed to run on enterprise-level hardware. The bonus is that since the OS and hardware all come from IBM, there is a single point of contact for those problems. There are some really cool things that separate AIX from other UNIX's:
* Most of the critical OS functions can be controlled via the SMIT interface.
* Unlike other flavours of UNIX, AIX does not use flat files to define parameters for daemons. AIX has all the relevant information stored in an internal database (The ODM).
* AIX ships with a journaled file system and file systems can be grown on the fly.
* AIX gives way more control over disk management than other flavours of UNIX. It is easy to implement the various type sof RAID. AIX also lets you control where certain files can be physically located on your disk, and during off-peak hours the system can move files around to re-organize the disks.
* It is trivial to create a complete image of the system on a bootable tape, so disaster recovery is a snap.
There are some downsides to AIX:
* AIX takes >5 minutes to boot.
* If the ODM gets corrupted, your system can be toast.
* Sometimes it is necessary to modify the ODM directly, and this can be a bit risky (see above)
* Third-party support for AIX is sketchy. It is better to use IBM applications where possible.
* IBM hardware is more expensive than the alternatives. You pay a premium for Big Blue.
Of the downsides, the last is the most significant. Not many non-IBM vendors write applications for it, and even if they do, Solaris, and Linux get more attention.
Sorry for sounding like a commercial for IBM, but I like AIX. It does some things very well, and is quite stable. My team manages a lot of mission-critical servers and AIX is nice to work with. We have talked briefly about Linux, the perception is that Linux is not yet ready for enterprise-class workload.
Re:My $.02 (Score:2, Informative)