Abandoning HPUX

[Mark Grant]

Hi all,

Today I find myself in an unusual situation. After spending eight years trying to persuade management to consider Linux, I find myself trying to persuade management to not use Linux.

We are close to capacity on all our systems with many more projects on the way. Management have asked me, yes you read that correctly, asked me, to evaluate the possibility of using Linux to address this capacity problem instead of new HPUX servers. The eventual aim would be to migrate everything off of HP and move to Linux, possibly on an intel platform.

My gut reaction surprised me. I felt this was not a good idea. I can run ten year old software on our current HP machines, I can not run software I bought on Linux three years ago.

The stability of HPUX, not just in PANICS per year but in it's interfaces is much higher than Linux in my view.

I would be grateful to hear your views on the subject and any experience of abandoning HPUX in favour of Linux.

Regards


Mark

[Pete Randall]

Mark,

April Fool!?!?


Pete

[Mark Grant]

:) Pete,

No, this is the real deal. Manager stood their bold as you like saying, "Maybe we should move to Linux". I don't know what magazine he's been reading recently but we suffer Management by magazine quite badly here.

[H.Merijn Brand (procura]

In that case, suggest M$Servers, and find yourself a new job

Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn [ Who grew _very_ fond of HP-UX over the past decennium ]

[john korterman]

Hi Mark,
perhaps then your manager has read about how to make a good april's fool joke on your unix admins.....?

regards,
John K.

[Mark Grant]

Merijn, Maybe that's what he meant!! Maybe he thinks Linux is the latest version of Windows.

[Bart Paulusse]

Hi Mark,

well, a very important thing to consider is where to turn to for support.
If you run into some software issues for an HP-UX product, there is a professional organization that will solve your problem.
Who picks up your software issues when your running Linux on an intel platform. The "linux community" doesn't sound like a very "solid" platform for support to me.

regards,

Bart

[Karthik S S]

Mark,

If you are considering RH Linux:

I think your management is not aware about the new Redhat policy. Latest versions are not free anymore.

http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/

-Karthik S S

[Hoefnix]

Mark,

If it's not a joke, you are still able to get support on Linux systems from HP (also on Intel).
I was on a Linux Roadshow of HP and they are promoting it very much.

So see it as a joke or as a challenge its up to you.

Regards,
Peter

[Mark Grant]

Karthik,

To be honest, if you've ever seen my posts in the Linux forum, you might guess that Red Hat would not be my first option anyway :)

However, the individual licensing cost is not the driving force here. Look at the cost of RAM, or another CPU for an rpXXXX machine. We need more RAM in two machines, a couple of FC cards in another machine, a CPU or two in another, maybe we should just throw in an intel box or three and run the new database on that. Plus, it appears that Linux is Oracle's development platform for 10.X if we can believe them.

There's a compelling and easy argument for cheap unix based hardware. It is difficult to frame a good argument for sticking with HP. I understand the "support" argument but my personal experience is that community based support (such as this forum) is ten times better and ten times faster than any vendor support (including Red Hat's) that I've used.