HP-UX vs. LINUX for Bea Weblogic application server

[Jean-Marie Wouters]

In a previous subject, there is a discussion about the use of HP-UX or Linux, mainly from the point of view of an Oracle Database. I would like to ask the same question for an application server (Bea Weblogic or Oracle IAS). Does an application server have to be considered as a critical mission application? It doesn't store any data; It 's only a layer (a tier) between the users and a (mission critical) database.
I'll appreciate to read your opinion about this? Can a linux structure have the same level (or even more) availability as HP-UX for this kind of application?
Thanks in advance
Jean-Marie

[Pete Randall]

Jean-Marie,

The main problem with Linux is the hardware reliability. Unix servers have uptimes measured in months and years. I'm not sure you're going to find that kind of uptime in an Intel based platform. If you're not looking for 5 nines reliability and can live with the chance that your application server might decide to take a vacation occasionally, then Linux sounds like a good choice. If you want rock solid dependability at all costs, HP-UX is the obvious choice.

Pete

[Stefan Farrelly]

High availability is just as good on Linux using somethign like RedHat Advanced Server, or HP's Serviceguard which has been ported to Linux now. So the questions you need to answer are which is cheaper ? what is easier for you to support (staff/contracts) ?

And even more importantly, is there some sort of Linux forum with as many experts available as there are HP-UX experts available on this forum ??

[dirk dierickx]

"And even more importantly, is there some sort of Linux forum with as many experts available as there are HP-UX experts available on this forum ??"

there are more usenet groups than you can shake a stick at. almost every country has at least one, every distro has multiple, and every part of the unix kernel and/or architecture platform has several. so you are covered there.

also everybody is free to subscribe to the multitude of mailing list, one of which is the 'linux kernel mailing list' where you are in _direct_ contact with all the kernel hackers. you can't get more expert level then that!

it is easy to achive high availability for webapps. just put a bunch of servers in loadbalancing or dns round robin, and if one of them fails, it won't have major impact.

[Jeffrey Killian]

Tuning after you get it up and running should also be considered. We use BEA Tuxedo (against an Oracle DB) and find it difficult to get "solid" answers to performance tuning questions with HP-UX...I would wonder how much more difficult it would be to get answers with Linux. We got our applications up and running faily quickly/easily, but after two years continue to seek new ways to improve performance. Now we are moving to new versions of Tuxedo and Oracle and our application - new opportunities! My vote is to stay on HP-UX!