Linux to Replace Solaris at Duke 462
wwhsgrad2002 writes "At the end of the 2004-2005 academic year, the Sun Solaris computers available in public computing labs at Duke University will be replaced. The replacement computers in these spaces will be Dells, running a version of Centos 3.3 as supported by Linux@DUKE. Pragmatic and technical considerations have driven this change, as Linux continues to gain a greater userbase and more third-party commercial software is made available on the platform. Are other universities eliminating Solaris in favor of a Linux distribution?"
Dunno about universities (Score:5, Informative)
And cost one third as much!
Raydude
Now hear this (Score:5, Interesting)
In three days time I will no longer work for Sun since I have been made redundant.
During my time at Sun I was part of the Companion CD team. We built on x86 and SPARC. For x86 builds we had a Dell 6400, Dell 6600 and finally a Sun V40z (4-way Opteron 246). For SPARC we built on E450, E4500, and V880 (8x900MHz UltraSPARC III) and V880 (8x1200MHz UltraSPARC III).
Now, I will not go into a long spiel about the realtive merits of the various hardware platforms, and I have no axe to grind now since I get my lasy pay cheque in a fortnight but:
Why the heck are you buying (32-bit intel) Dells when you can buy (cheaper and faster 64-bit) Opteron boxes from Sun? If you are a Linux fanboy, Sun will sell you one with DeadRat or SuSE. They are Windoze certified in case you have had a lobotomy, and you can run the free (as in beer) 64-bit Solaris 10 on them.
pBut hey, it's cool to hate Sun on slashdot.
Re:Now hear this (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Now hear this (Score:3, Interesting)
Two years ago when Sun decided to do an AMD64 port of Solaris, I spoke to my friendly Dell salesman and asked if they were going to be selling Opterons and he said "we're not sure, maybe if people ask for them."
Oh well. We bought a bunch of MSI and Tyan motherboards and made our own.
Re:Now hear this (Score:2, Informative)
I remember as undergraduate CS student looking for a summer internship going from booth to booth looking for a good company to work for. The first question Sun asked me was "Are you comfortable working for tech support?". I just laughed at them and walked away. I am sure there are some good reason they would want interns to start there...but give me a break. Why go with Sun when there
Re:Now hear this (Score:5, Interesting)
getting into sun would have been a great experience for you. you can move around once you get inside.
the culture is great, its one of the few places in the valley that STILL have hardwall offices for engineers (nice!), and its got of lot of new tech. going on inside.
oh, and scott hates windows and MS. that, alone, is worth joining sun for
Re:Now hear this (Score:5, Informative)
Er, um, well...
Did you look on the Companion CD that comes in your media kit?
Well did you?
Did you look on www.sun.com?
Did you hell.
But you still get modded up.
And for what it's worth, if you are running the 64-bit AMD Solaris 10 kernel, you are running a Solaris kernel compiled with gcc 3.4.x
Re:Now hear this (Score:4, Interesting)
These times are for Dual 280rs w/raid 5. I can't even begin to talk about how long it takes on a netra.
I've recently started running solaris again, and I now notice there are at least 2-5 recommended/critical patches a WEEK for my system, most requiring reboots. My redhat servers had 2 curl (non-reboot related) vulnerabilites last week, and a couple other ones about 4 weeks ago that didn't require a reboot either. Debian security updates are less often (As in, the packages are stable and vulnerability free for a very long time).
Debian takes ~8 minutes to install, 10 to update, gcc and bash are installed by default, and the backspace works.
Solaris (8|9) is a joke, no matter how much work you put in your companion cd, I'm sorry, it just sucks. I remember a few times where I got 600+ days of uptime off solaris, but you need balls of steel when you ignore security updates that long.
Solaris 10 may be different, I haven't tried. I'm waiting for my ulcer to get better.
Sorry for the rant, don't take it personally.
p.s. Thanks for jumpstart (and snoop!).
p.p.s. Give up on java.
Re:Now hear this (Score:5, Insightful)
#1. What are the ramifications of applying the patch? What applications do they break?
#2. Is my server even going to come back up?
#3. Why should I have to apply a patch for the "base install" tftp daemon that gives remote root anyway? Why did solaris install this? Wouldn't it be better to leave this to the aptly named "system administrator"?
#4. Though the chances of it happening are small, what if my Server A fails during Server B's update/reboot(With all the patching, I have a lot more downtime on the Server A and B...)? Sun is just going to sell me 4 more? Sounds like they're fixing fundamental system issues with bandaids like "multiple servers" and "redundancy".
It's not really a non-issue, quite the opposite.
And what about time? As a system administrator I firmly believe I don't need to spend a majority of my time considering reboots, and I have the ability to do that with systems like debian.
Overall: More software per server=More Security vulnerabilites=Reboots=More Time Invested=Lopsided TCO equation.
That's just in my company, I understand this doesn't apply everywhere, and debian isn't always the right tool for the job.
Re:Now hear this (Score:5, Insightful)
Ouch. That was a real career blunder on your part. I'm sure that you, like many CS grads, assume that you *deserve* a job programming fresh out of school. The reality is that most of us who became professional developers do have to pay our dues in support. And the experience, even in support, at Sun, would have really set you up on a fast track into some good stuff. I hope your current job is somewhere as prestigious and well-respected as Sun and not some tiny Internet-based startup.
Re:Now hear this (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember, not that long ago, when Sun boxen were cool. They were "in like Ray Bans [ray-ban.com]". Recently, Sun has done a lot of aggressive legwork to rid themselves of "cool factor" and become an evil company.
Why buy cheaper Sun boxes when you could buy Dell boxes? Excellent question. You're leaving Sun, so it's time to get away from the distortion field that your company tells your employees.
Sun is famous for lock-in. They get you hooked on a technology at a loss and then milk you for licensing and upgrades. It's how the Big Boys do it -- the only problem with this scheme is the newbies who don't see it coming. Dell, on the other hand, is a known quantity for everyone. You want more hardware? Simple enough to get an easy-to-read quote. Service? Same thing. Software, they'll happily re-sell you. Last time I had a Sun service call was a horrible experience, but I can't compare that to Dell. Linux support? Who cares about Linux support at a university? Don't they have undergraduates on work-study programs for that?
When you buy Dell, it's like going to McDonald's. It may not be gourmet, but you know what you'll get. Buying Sun is like going on a blind date. Only the experienced know what to expect and the rest of us will be surprised.
Don't get me wrong, there are reasons to go with Sun -- and very good ones, too. But Sun trains its employees that its machines are always superior over any other vendor, which clearly is not the case.
Re:Now hear this (Score:3, Insightful)
Breaking the 4GB segment barrier. If you ever coded on an 8-bit micro or DOS PeeCee you'll understand the crapness of small memory segements and the frustration and bugs caused.
There are other improvements in Opteron (AMD64) that are nothing to do with being 64-bit (such as the integrated memory controller, Hypertransport, NUMA, advanced superscalar execution) that have their roots in larger systems of yesteryear that intel has yet to catch up with (except in itanic).
And don't get
You lost this argument. (Score:4, Interesting)
Somehow I doubt that a doubling of pointer widths is going to result in a doubling of your power requirements.
General purpose computing doesn't need to deal with over 4 billion unique things.
Yes it does, all the time. Not all of us write webapps all day. I work in bioinformatics and hit my head on the 4 GB memory limit constantly. There are 300 billion bases in the human genome, and tens of millions of polymorphisms with information required about their names, aliases, positions, and allele frequencies. I can't store things as first class objects- I have to use RLE encoded primitives everywhere and there is no type safety because everything has to be an int. Many algorithms require repeated visits to arbitrary points on a chromosome so paging through a database is not really an option. If you have to page contigs in and out of memory, many genetic linkage algorithms will take the lifetime of the universe to complete.
The 32->64 bit problem isn't the same as the 8->16 or 16->32 problem. If it was, why not just jump to 128 bit?
The Earth weighs 6E24 kg. 0.375% of it is continental crust, roughly 15% of which is silicon. If you consider that the atomic weight of silicon is 28 g/mol and figure roughly 10000 atoms of silicon per bit, that means that if we were to mine all of the silicon out of the continents, make RAM out of all of it, and put all that RAM in one big giant computer, that computer would need to be designed with an address space 132 bits wide. [google.com] So you see, even 128 bits is not enough.
Re:You lost this argument. (Score:3, Interesting)
The big problem is moving more sutff on and off the stack (on stack window) and your need larger caches that hold mostly zeros.
As far as DNA goes (which isn't a general purpose problem like I had mentioned), thats a problem of using the wrong hardware for the job. What you need is a 64k or so bit machine like cray was building before they went bust. Going from 32 to
Re:Now hear this (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dunno about universities (Score:2)
Informative? Jeez! (Score:3, Insightful)
Presumably your purchasing people are smarter than you and compared these new Dell machines with current Sun machines. Now, Sun's SPARC-based systems are still basically more powerful than Dell's Pentium-based systems. But Pentium-based systems cost a lot less to make, so your company finds its more cost effective to buy more Dell machines to make up the difference in raw processing pow
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:3, Insightful)
Even VAX machines are still being used, and MULTICS wasn't finally put out of use until the year 2000.
Yes, if you're doing short-range projects with relatively trivial applications a Dell machine running Linux is better value; if you'll still be doing the same thing in a decade
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:3, Insightful)
While I agree with your point in general, I take contention at your use of the above analogy, at least in respect to American architecture post 1940.
Apartments, by their nature, are most commonly found in urban (regardless of size, village-->town-->city) settings. As such, they exist in densely populated spots and were usually built pre 1940 at a point when the general public cared about quality (both sturdiness and look) of bu
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:3, Insightful)
Note 1: I said post 1940.
Note 2: I can't see my neighbors and the silence is exquisite. That doesn't sound like suburbia [pbase.com]
The suburban life that I have witnessed (growing up in south-central Pennsylvania) was a soul-sucking existence that had many features that didn't make sense. For example, there is the characature of a "porch" and "front door" that all of the suburban
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:3, Informative)
Sun's hardware, especially the old SparcStations, are nearly indestructible. We literally have old Sparc 5s plugging away still. Dells are, as others have pointed out, inexpensive to buy and run pretty well.
Basically, the way it works around here is, if you can afford it, you buy a Sun. If you don't, you buy a Dell and throw Linux on it.
I need hardware to last three years, thats it (Score:2)
Re:I need hardware to last three years, thats it (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd be surprised, a lot of universities and colleges have a lot of old hardware, especially Suns.
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:2)
Last year we finally shut down 6 entry-level HP workstations (715/50) that were of +- 8 years old at the time. These had indeed become too slow for real use, but were still being used as X terminals by students.
I wouldn't want to try any of that with our Intel based Compaq servers, because we know from experience (this translates as: yes w
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like a good deal to me!
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like a good deal to me!
I think you're trying to be funny, but it is a good deal - if you buy two in a year instead of one, each at 1/3 price, you pay 2/3 the price - thus saving 1/3 the price. Since failure is unpredictable even in expensive equipment, you're going to buy two of your servers for redundancy anyways (right?) - so the longevity argument doesn't even factor in.
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:4, Interesting)
We had a 5 to 1 ration of Dell to Sun gear at my last job. And Sun still managed to have 3x as much hear spectacularly fail. We had no less then eight Sun 6500 machines blackbirded in 6 months. That means three Sun dudes come and live in your data center while they make sure everything is *exactly* as it should be. Net result: no change in the rate chip were blown.
Same thing at my new job. One of the two Sun V880s blows something once every other month. The fifty odd Dell servers just sit there doing their job. Other than two blown motherboards over the past two years. And those weren't even major outages since I just dropped the harddrives into the spare chassis... hell of lot cheaper than Sun maintenance.
Sun can go suck it.
kashani
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:4, Insightful)
I just love this shit. It's hilarious. And it always happens, without fail. When everybody brings out their anecdotes about hardware reliability, someone trashes on pretty much everybody's gear, somebody's worked at a place where any given manufacturer's stuff was junk, and someone out there has had any given vendor's stuff work perfectly.
At least everyone can agree that everyone's stuff used to be reliable. They sure don't meake 'em like they used to...
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:2)
Re:Sun=good hardware Dell =cheap hardware (Score:2)
The Optiplex line has been very good to me. Maybe you are talking about the Precision, or Dimension products?
Centos 3.3? Why? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sure it can be tweaked to be just fine, but it seems kind of an odd choice to me, for a computing lab.
Re:Centos 3.3? Why? (Score:2)
Either way CentOS does come with gnome, X, etc. by default so there isn't anything that stops you from using it as a desktop OS.
It is because it is stable. (Score:2)
When you are talking about deploying an OS onto a crapload of workstations at either a University or company, it is not important if they support the latest USB doo-dads out of box, or that they have the fan
Re:Centos 3.3? Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Most Solaris labs are used for engineering and similar technical work, often on proprietary apps distributed in binary for for only 1 or 2 major linux distros. This probably makes support a breeze compared to all sorts of tweaks and hacks to make these apps run under Unbuntu or others.
Re:Centos 3.3? Why? (Score:2)
To answer your question though, they probbably want a stable, low cost distribution that's going to be supported several years per release. That's Centos. What they don't want is a cutting edge distribution that's going
Re:Centos 3.3? Why? (Score:2)
Red Hat Desktop
Workstation
Enterprise Server
Advanced Server
Advanced server has the functionality (read packages) of all the ones below it. That includes Evolution et cetera.
If there is a reason for them to use that, it is because every ISV that supports Linux (and I mean most every ISV) supports RHEL 3.x.
Re:Centos 3.3? Why? (Score:2)
You can get Maple, and Matlab for BSD without Linux emulation? StarOffice even?
Both are valid operating systems (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Both are valid operating systems (Score:2)
Duke was probably planning this switch long before Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris rolled around. Solaris 10 is what UNIX should have been years ago, if only because of DTrace (DTrace is really really cool, and would be great for a senior-level elective).
UMD (Score:5, Informative)
I for one welcome our Educational Linux using ahchchhc cough cough.
Re:UMD (Score:3, Informative)
We also got a "new" Linux lab a couple years ago in the new CSIC building.
Finally, I believe the Solaris boxen in the labs are being phased out as well.
Linux is very much in the vogue for cluster computing at our fine school as well - astro uses Condor to have a night cluster, as well as a dedicated one at the bottom of the CSS building.
Bio also has something, not quite sure of the specifics.
OIT, not too l
Re:UMD (Score:2)
Johns Hopkins University computer science (Score:3, Informative)
The old Suns run SunOS 5.6, also called Solaris 2.6. That's before Sun started really running with the Solaris trademark. They had 128 megabytes of RAM, slow-as-molasses X, and could hardly run mozilla. They had SSH version 1 installed.
The new machines have two Pentium 4 chips at 2.80GHz. They have 1024KB of cache. They have 1.5 gigabytes o
Re:UMD (Score:2)
If GRUB could query the system clock to determine what to boot to, that would solve many, many problems...
-Erwos
Linux / Sparc (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Linux / Sparc (Score:2, Flamebait)
What's doubly silly is going from 64-bit SPARC running Solaris to 32-bit intel (Dell) running Linux.
Going to 64-bit AMD running Linux (or even Solaris) I could understand...
It makes me feel conceited to think that I know better than wise and learned university staff.
Re:Linux / Sparc (Score:2)
Does it? I had a hard time finding benchmarks newer than 2000 or so. But then, I guess that's when Linux started being good enough for enterprise computing.
I did find something in the UltraLinux FAQ:
http://www.ultralinux.org/faq.html#q_1_10 [ultralinux.org]
freshmaker (Score:2, Funny)
BYU (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:BYU (Score:2)
Re:BYU (Score:2)
What do you mean, "used to be the unix lab"?
Sounds like it still is the unix lab, just a different flavor, and a different hardware platform.
Re:BYU (Score:2)
-Dan
Servers (Score:2)
Maybe? (Score:3, Interesting)
Over time this has slowly changed though -- Sun upgrades their hardware and takes back the old machines on a cyclical basis, and recently all of the desktops were replaced with thin clients (about as big as a cabel modem!). And I'm pretty sure the main server was migrated to Linux.
Since all the professors have been using Solaris for probably around a decade, it's doubtful they'll change the clients anytime soon... but from what I can tell, they're slowly testing out Linux as a replacement.
I'm not gonna speculate why, I'm just answering the question
Re:Maybe? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Maybe? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yale (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yale (Score:2)
BTW I work for a major auto manufacturer, and linux is slowly creeping into the infrastructure, and starting to take over jobs once held by solaris and hpux boxes. All the new linux servers are suse enterprise v9. The unix admins who've tried suse seem pleasantly surprised at how we
Duke sucks. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Duke sucks. (Score:4, Funny)
(drew 'hates duke' so its an ongoing joke to say 'duke sucks' whenever possible)
Linux - blah, blah, blan... (Score:5, Interesting)
Really, so that means vendors have stopped supplying new softwares for Solaris! Or does it mean that practically Solaris is not technically a viable solution?
I really don't see the need to replace an X system with Y system when the X system does the job for you more than adequately. I don't understand why people are always eager to change systems. Of course someone is going to reply to me and say - "hey universities are research institutions and they need new stuff" - too overrated. I am not trying to root for Solaris here, just don't get why you need to replace a system that can do the job that Linux can.
Re:Linux - blah, blah, blan... (Score:2)
Bang for buck?
Re:Linux - blah, blah, blan... (Score:2)
This gets in to a gripe of mine. I see a ton of people at various companies spending money on software solution
Re:Linux - blah, blah, blan... (Score:5, Interesting)
Bang! is an understatement here
Re:Linux - blah, blah, blan... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd be more willing to buy sun if they stopped propping up their reseller channels and just made their real prices available on a web page. Dell (for example) lets me pick the machine I want by choosing parts from a web page and then tells me the price. If I don't like the price I go on to the next vendor. With sun I have to invest time and money just to find out what sun feels like charging, then I have to go back and ask them if they want to change the pr
Re:Linux - blah, blah, blan... (Score:5, Interesting)
A couple months ago the Sun guy showed up with this desparate look on his face and said "just tell us what we need to charge to beat Dell and we'll make it happen." This is a welcome change in attitude, but I don't see how they can possibly compete with Dell on price. Dell has just about the most efficient business in the entire world and is used to razor-thin margins. Whatever - that's their problem.
We used to put up with overpriced hardware because moving to Windows just seemed too painfull, but Linux seems to be a reasonable alternative to Solaris I don't see any reason to pay more. My suspicion is we'll run Solaris when Sun can undercut Dell and Linux otherwise.
Re:Linux - blah, blah, blan... (Score:2)
True. But that's what folks said to me in 1996 when I said I didn't need to replace my Amiga. I was right then, but soon became wrong.
Re:Linux - blah, blah, blan... (Score:2)
I worked at a place that wanted to upgrade Office '97 to 2003 due to some application that was using features in 2003.
It turned out to be cheaper to buy new machines with Office 2003 preinstalled, because we could use capital funds to make the purchase. If we had tried to upgrade, the money would have come out the operational budget and we would've laid off a bunch of contractors.
Re:Linux - blah, blah, blan... (Score:2)
Yes... (Score:2)
My take on pundits:
I love pundits for they throw light on issues that the main stream might miss.
However, my issue with [some] pundits is that some of them know nothing, and to make matters worse, they do not know that they know so little or nothing at all! Some of these pundits to t
Switching stories (Score:5, Insightful)
Some companies have said that if Sun was doing three years ago what they are doing now (Solaris 10, OpenSolaris, free licensing), they would not have switched to Linux. Consider that Sun still guarantees binary and source compatibility when migrating to Solaris 10 from older versions, while Linux cannot. Linux is very useful, but there are still things that make long-term deployments awkward at times. Mod what you will, but it is true.
I doubt binary compatibility is high on reqs (Score:2)
my school district restricts linux (Score:5, Funny)
Re:my school district restricts linux (Score:5, Funny)
I had my kids convert the Windows lab to a Linux one. The equipment was so old that Linux ran far more efficiently than Win95 did (forget about even installing Win2000 or XP, the computers didn't come close to meeting minimum requirements). I used KDE for the environment since it seems KDE is bound and determined to emulate Windows and that's what the kids were familiar with. Not, it turns out, that it mattered; kids are far more resilient and adaptable than adults are and they had no problem mastering the differences in a matter of days.
When the techs visited the lab they didn't even recognize the software that supposedly was a crass insult to their Lord and Savior, the Great Bill. They asked me - get this - what version of Windows I was running, and what 'skin' I was using. Since I didn't want my lab disassembled with a sledgehammer wielded by Windows zealots I told them it was Win98 with a skin that I had, erm, designed especially for the kids (snicker). They thought it was cool and asked me if I could give 'em a copy, which I promised I would (although I never delivered, of course).
Can't imagine what they thought when I moved on to other things and they were left with a lab full of computers which didn't recognize the Windows automatic updating service as a valid tool. But then they never got a service call once I converted the lab, so who knows? Those machines might still be running Linux without anyone the wiser.
Max
Re:my school district restricts linux (Score:5, Interesting)
to get digital school money, we need to have some x:y ratio of computers to students, so the district goes out and buys alot of pentium 120's w/32MB ram. there actually sitting around collecting dust at my school, but we have "computers". so, I snag several and bring them into my classroom, scrounge a switch, and turn them into X clients running off my P3 933 mandrake box. 6 computers running moz, OO.org, etc., great. kids use them without a problem. so, i pitch the idea to the principal, because we have a "lab" full of pentium 120's and 166's that take 10 minutes to start and are practically worthless once running, as they have to load up the novell client, anti-virus, lock down, security, etc., etc. software not to mention windoze. the lab was fully funcitoning, just never used. it was like a root canal with no anasthesia. and all we'd need is an application server, a dual pentium rig, big hard drives, lots of memory. $3000 tops. and we'd have a screaming lab. she's interested. I pitch it to the district and it gets shot down like a duck on opening day.
here's the {funniest|saddest} part: this was in late spring, when the next years funding proposals, etc. take place. the next year, our resident technidiot spends his time breaking down the literally 100+ old pentiums, stacking up the 1GB hard drives, organizing the 8MB SIMMs, etc. the only thing I could think to relate was he was doing graves registration duty. better to eliminate any possibiltiy than actually have a lab that the kids could use. part of the reason the computer were never used was because it costs about $300-$350 to put a workstation in front of a kid even if you give us the hardware. and 100 X $300...
he argued that they want to "standardize" on windows, as if he didn't realize how stupid and uninformed that comment was. he was concerned they wouldn'tbe able to use word. hell, we were still using word97 in 2002. As if Abi or OO aren't capable of typing papers, etc.
Re:my school district restricts linux (Score:3, Interesting)
In the high school scene... (Score:2)
Ohio State (Score:2)
It's a good thing, too (Score:2)
The only window manager that worked on it was CDE which was butt ugly and difficult to use, vim was configured in a way that was completely different from anything we had ever used, and the Sun keybaord had many keys in different positions! Not that we would have won, but the High Point University freshman team may have done a little better.
So who do we talk to (Score:2)
Edinburgh (Score:3, Interesting)
another replacement scenario (Score:2, Interesting)
Notre Dame too (Score:3, Informative)
Of course they aren't exactly using best management practices IMO but OIT never really took care of the Sun boxes either.
Caltech (Score:2, Informative)
Solaris is replacing Linux here at UMBC (Score:5, Interesting)
We use AFS [openafs.org] here for everyone's home directory, mail spool, web space, and other things. To maintain this, we currently have about 6 servers with direct-attached storage serving everyone's AFS home directory volumes. These servers are a mix of Dell and Sun gear running Linux and Solaris. Both platforms have run well over the years, but each server's direct-attached SCSI storage is limitting and, well, aging.
So we can better use our storage and improve things for everyone in general, I'm in the process of rolling out a fiber channel SAN with new servers and RAID arrays to replace what's currently running. The new server gear we chose? Sun's V20z Opteron server running Solaris 10 . Linux is right out.
Why no more Linux, or rather, why Solaris? A few reasons. Solaris's storage management is TONS easier to deal with and do interesting things with than what is available in Linux. Namely, we've found and have been fustrated by Linux's software RAID. Yeah, it works... but that's about it. Weee look, I can make a mirror! Solaris's SVM (aka DiskSuite) is no VxVM, but it does allow us to do things such as disk sets to share between hosts and monitor our metadevices in detail. Linux's raidutils on the other hand are poorly documented and toublesome (usage options don't match reality, etc)
Another aspect on Linux vs. Solaris in mass storage is (as far as I know) a lack of multi-pathing in Linux. Multi-pathing is a no-brainer especially in the context of Fiber Channel networks and Solaris's MPxIO is in-built and works quite well.
But I'm just poo-pooing Linux here on this specific point. We offer Linux workstations in every one of our computing labs. Linux replaced SGI/IRIX workstations there many moons ago and work well for that purpose. Linux servers also are used for our general shell login servers. But on the backend, where we need reliable features, consistency, and heavy-lifting... we're enthralled with Sun x86 servers and Solaris 10. The V20z Opteron hardware actually is cheaper (for us) than a Dell 2650 and offers a ton more features all-alround.
There is an irony, though. The service processor on the Sun V20zs run Linux. Ah well
university of texas at austin CS dept stays split (Score:5, Informative)
do students massively prefer the PC's to the sunblades and sunrays? sure. many professors care less. but do we want to limit any of them to a single platform? definitely not.
Sun Hardware (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do you think Sun is doing Opteron servers these days ?
My university, too, is mid-way switching from Sun to Linux. With Sun hardware you pay a premium for a slow product (at least CPU-wise, which, for the kind of stuff university people do, is the most important). Simply not worth it.
SCO karma (Score:3, Funny)
A Nelson HA HA to you, Sun.
Re:Networked File System? (Score:2)
Re:Networked File System? (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:2)
Actually, I think the Linux desktops really are getting there. I'm running JDS3 (on Solaris, but it's basically still GNOME/OO.org), and I really need Windows for very very few things. Given that the major Linux desktops are also much cheaper than Windows for similar capability, I'd say Microsoft is really worried but not showing it.
Just like AMD pulled a fast one on Intel, Linux/UNIX will do the same to Microsoft. My hope is that "Wintel" will be a paragraph in the history books and little more.
Because CentOS is the stable version (Score:3, Informative)
Redhat still distributes the entire source code via the GPL. The volunteers at CentOS remove the copyrighted material and then release CentOS.
The reason why they use CentOS over the other distributions is that in a production environment you do not want to use anything potentially unstable (i.e., fedora
Re:Why Centos? (Score:2)
Re:Quiet around here (Score:2)
SunRay?
Re:Quiet around here (Score:2)
Okay, SunRay + Solaris Containers?
Re:Quiet around here (Score:3, Insightful)
Speed is relative anyway. My Ultra 5 didn't run individual programs as fast as its PC contemporary, but it's multi-processing ability was worth it's weight in gold. Windows absolutely choked on my workload, whereas my Sun kept chugging no matter what I threw at it. Program loading? No problem! Just minimize, keep working, and come back to it when it's loaded. Windows would thrash on that sort of thing.
Got three compiles, two remote X sessions, four ne
Re:back when i was at duke (Score:3, Informative)