On Fri, 9 Jul 2004, Keg wrote:

This smells of a troll...

> For starters I have been a Sun guy as far back as the old 100-lb Sparc
> IPX systems and I still believe they make the best hardware on the

Umm, IPXs were little lunch box sized boxes, certainly didn't
weigh 100 lbs.

> Example 1: We were told that some of the mid-range equipment we bought
> 3 years ago would "Meet our database needs for 5 years or more". Now
> our 3-year support contracts have expired and support for some of our
> machines nearly tripled and they are now telling us the equipment is

Yeah. All vendors will probably try that one.

> The Linux Issue:
>
> I think Sun is dropping the ball badly. The only thing holding Linux
> back as a larger player in the data center is the lack of enterprise
> quality x86 hardware and the scheduling issues with the pre-2.6 linux
> kernels. Both of those issues are quickly changing and Linux, in my

There are other issues holding LInux back in the Enterprise space.
Just ask the large retailer here in Canada who had to ditch his
Linux email solution because it was too unreliable.

> As an IT Director, I have no choice but to start moving towards Linux.
> Why?
> 1) Support is orders of magnitude cheaper.
> 2) Replacement parts are usually a 10 minute drive away.
> 3) Replacement parts are cheap enough to keep on hand. (hell keep
> entire spare systems on standby)

Please explain how the availability of commodity PC parts is anything
to do with Linux. What is preventing you from running Solaris x86 on
that same x86 hardware?

> 5) x86 based hardware is much easier and faster to troubleshoot and
> repair. (and thus employed skillsets are cheaper and easier to find)

Nonesense. IME x86 is notoriously HARD to diagnose. Unless your
idea of diagnosis is "just replace the box".

> You can't ignore that the "real-world" TCO is much much lower with
> Linux.

I don't think it is.

> I justed replaced some very heavily hit E450 NFS servers with dual 1.7
> Ghz Xeon systems, 2GB RAM, and Adaptec SCSI cards for local system
> disk mirroring. I needed no additional support for this config and
> these systems can be maintained by any college intern. If I need a new
> CPU or something I send one of my IT guys down the street to Comp-USA
> or wherever.

Agreed. What's preventing you from running Solaris x86 - a mature,
enterprise ready OS NOW - on it?

> Please Sun, get more proactive in the Linux space, it is the future,

Linux is NOT the future - apart from the drooling Linux hordes.
In fact, if anything, I predict that more and more IT managers
will become disenfrachised with Linux once they realize that it
doesn't live up to its hype.

> From a persoanl career standpoint I have to start focusing my energies
> on Linux so that I can keep myself employed in the next 5-10 years. I
> honestly think, unless things change drastically, that Sun's future is
> very bleak. I mean, if Sun can't sell gear to the techies that love
> the stuff, what can they do?

Yeah, sure. SUn has "been on the brink" of years now...

> Just ranting I guess, I really like Sun's equipment but it is becoming
> more and more difficult to put Sun gear into the Data Center,
> especially with IT budgets today. To me, tripling support costs to
> force customers into newer gear is un-ethical and I will take no part
> in it.

Ah, so you disapprove of Red Hat's Enterprise Linux move, then?

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
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