On 30.09.2015 22:23, Jason Britton wrote:
Hello Good People -
We currently have multiple Tomcat instances deployed on RHEL in production
with no issues but I am getting asked why we shouldn't migrate everything
to run on Windows 2008 R2 Server instead. My stomach churns at the thought
but I am looking for more concrete information about why this could be
problematic vs. running Tomcat on RHEL/CentOS. My gut says far more Tomcat
deployments in production are done on top of Linux based OS's vs. Windows.
Any thoughts on making an argument for one OS vs another in deploying
Tomcat 8? Thanks for your thoughts,
This looks like the ideal start for some holy war.
Maybe you (not me) could argue that Tomcat being an Open-Source, free software, would
undoubtedly feel more comfortable and cushy living inside a platform that is like him,
open-source and free ?
(Whilst being perfectly able to run under Windows and other platforms, for being a
versatile multi-platform Java application, it may nevertheless always feel a bit like an a
not-so-well integrated immigrant there).
More seriously (and considering that you seem to express a slight personal preference for
the one vs the other) :
The main difference for Tomcat itself is probably going to be in
- what kind of hardware would Tomcat be running on in either case ?
- how stable is the Java JVM which actually runs the Tomcat java code, in
either case ?
But you may also want to give a thought to everything else, apart from Tomcat and around
it, which is currently installed and running on your current platform, and whether the
equivalent exists on the other platform. It may well be for example, that some auxiliary
product of which you are currently using the open-source and free version, is not
available on the other platform, or available only in a different and/or non-free version.
You may also want to consider how you are currently supporting/maintaining your Tomcat and
its applications. If you are using Linux/shell-based tools, that may be more difficult
under Windows, and/or require other tools.
If that system is remote with reference to the people supporting/maintaining it, you may
also want to investigate what kind of access tools you would have to a Windows platform.
In my experience for instance, accessing these platforms via SSH/SCP/SFTP requires some
serious non-standard setup. Also an access via Remote Desktop (almost the standard when
talking about a Windows server), will require a VPN for working correctly, and even then
any file transfers are likely to be much more of a hassle than with a Linux platform.
For example, the file drag-and-drop feature via Remote Desktop, is kind of neat
graphically, but in the principle often turns out to be abysmally slow.
(And of course that works only if your own station is Windows).
You may also want to give a thought to who else (apart from yourself presumably) is going
to provide the support for the platform in question and its OS, and its integration in the
big scheme of things. Quite often in my experience, the teams in charge of each kind of
platform are different. Quite often also, they have a different focus and different sets
of skills.
You may also be interested in finding out what kind of global security and other policies
apply to this other platform. Who for exmple enjoys admin rights to it, and/or how easy
it is to obtain such rights when needed for installation-support-maintenance purposes ?
There may also be global policies regarding allowed and/or mandatory software updates and
patches, different per platform type. And there might be policies regarding mandatory
usage of auxiliary things, such as virus scanners and the like.
Enough yet ?
P.S. In my line of business, we install and support our applications remotely on both
kinds of platforms, and occasionally we move ditto applications from the one to the other
at the customer's request.
(In the IT world, there are also fashions, which come and go).
Such moves are never to be considered lightly, even when you might think at first that
being purely Tomcat and purely Java, it should not be an issue. It usually is an issue,
for the simple fact that over time, you have probably gotten used to the one platform and
its tools and quirks, and you have probably accumulated a lot of peripheral stuff that is
not really multi-platform hanging around, which you initially forget about because you
have gotten so used to it.
So whatever you end up having to do (many times you don't get to choose), make sure that
you and whoever else is concerned, at least have realistic expectations about the time and
effort it takes to move.
It is not that the one platform is necesarily better or worse than the other. It is the
fact that they are *different*, and because of that a lot of things around them are
different too.
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