On Friday 06 September 2002 11:59 am, Bruce Fry wrote: > We're researching the opportunity of server consolidation through the > investment of LINUX images on our mainframe. Is anyone aware of compiler > limitations concerning programming languages, or anything at all between > Microsoft or Unix environments to LINUX? Several members of our Network > team are standing firmly in the ear of management exclaiming that LINUX is > something of a toy or IBM cash cow that will not perform up to Microsoft or > Unix standards.
Something others have not mentioned yet, but which I think is worth thinking about, is that Linux doesn't *have* to be better than UNIX in order to be of value to a shop that uses UNIX elsewhere. Linux started as a reverse-engineered UNIX-like operating system, and although today it has many new features that aren't common to all *NIX systems, there is still enormous commonality. System administrators and users can move easily between Linux, HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, Irix, and other UNIX flavors. There is a learning curve, to be sure, when one talks about advanced features, but the basics of file and directory management, text handling, command scripting, searching, editing, and the developer infrastructure are *extremely* similar. If a company is standardized on Windows, system admins are trained and ready for any task that can be accomplished on an Intel PC. Anything else requires substantial retraining, or hiring a new team of people. By contrast, if the company is standardized on UNIX-like systems, the entire gamut of platforms from embedded systems to corporate mainframes and supercomputing clusters are within reach, with a reasonable training curve -- often a self-taught skill enhancement rather than off-site training. Windows has an overwhelming majority of the PC world right now, but at most companies the PC isn't the entire universe. One value of Linux is that it is able to make a PC or a mainframe work very much like a UNIX workstation or a supercomputer, allowing best practices from these environments to be leveraged painlessly on lower cost hardware. Another value of Linux is its ability to bring low-cost, widely-available software to the fault-tolerant and robust hardware environment of a mainframe. With Linux on a mainframe, you can use existing data management and security tools, plus your disaster recovery and business continuity infrastructure, with software tools that are on the cutting edge of open-standards development. All the benefits of mainframes' traditional cautiousness accrue, with very few of the drawbacks. So at both the top and bottom end, Linux brings great advantage to a company that views the IT universe in totality, rather than as a collection of desktops. Microsoft provides excellent user-friendly products for one level of the IT infrastructure, but only Linux and UNIX can span the entire range of levels. Incidentally, Linux and Windows can now interoperate quite well, as long as open standards are followed when defining IT infrastructure. Want to leave your desktops running Windows? No problem. Linux servers can handle file and print sharing, DNS, web, firewalls, proxies, routing, databases, LDAP, and most of the other things that happen behind the scenes. So it's not really a question of whether Linux is "better" than Windows or UNIX. Linux is a capable new tool, and it is valuable largely because it can plug into the infrastructure and platforms you already have. Your IT staff should be looking at adding Linux skills to their personal portfolios, using Linux where and when appropriate, rather than being threatened by it. Linux is the best glue you've ever seen, and it sticks to every surface from PDA to mainframe. Scott -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott D. Courtney, Senior Engineer Sine Nomine Associates [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sinenomine.net/
