Re: UNIX versus Linux

[Dave hardy]

Thanks.   Large=an Oracle db that will handle all of the state's insurance agent and licensing data, increasing OLTP, much of the state's health care rates and forms data, consumer complaint data, and eventually all of the state's Medicare/Managed Care and hospital discharge data.  Probably some web access to some of this as well.   Uptime=08:00-18:00 M-F, tops, for the forseeable future.   There is no current database per se for all of this data;  it's broken up amongst Access, Paradox and vanilla ASCII at present.   Training and resources are somewhat limited, although initially there is a good budget for this.    The vendor prefers to support Solaris, as that is where their o.s. 'expertise' is, although they will also support NT, not their preferred platform, however.  As for Linux, they do not have any expertise in it, and as for other UNIX platforms they do not have a test environment for them and have not tested with any of them as yet, so their support for any of these other products would not be 'in depth' and would, rather, be 'limited.'    The people involved primarily with this decision appear not to be overly concerned about the vendor's level of support for the o.s. and would presumably ramp up training for at least a couple of individuals to handle that part of it.    What we have here is a possibility of tilting some folks a little further over to Open Source and community support, and away from M$ and NetWare.          >>> Jeffry Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 06/23/00 12:59PM >>> If it weren't for newbie's, Linux wouldn't grow.  Welcome. How large is large?  How much uptime is needed, etc?  What's the current database on (since you talk migration)?  Obviously, I'd recommend a Linux install, as to which distro, if the vendor will do the work, Red Hat, Debian, Turbo, Suse should work.  Definately make certain you get a distro that aims towards server (although all of them can do it, Corel is more aimed at the desktop, I don't know what hoops you might have to go through to turn on the server stuff, since I haven't used it).  A part of it is determining what training you can get, or what resources you would have available in the area.  Also, if you want to outsource support, and if so, what level (all, only Level 2 or 3, etc).  Also, what is the vendor "back off" on each distro? What would they consider supporting?  Is it their lack of expertise with Linux?  Have they considered outsourcing the linux part of the support?  Which Sun Unix (SunOS or Solaris - although I suspect the latter, as it's been around for several years now) I know that a lot of things that run on Sun's Solaris just recompile for Linux (not everything, but many things), and since Linux aims at Posix compatibility, from the application level, if they have a problem on one, they will probably have the same problem on the other. On Fri, 23 Jun 2000, Dave hardy wrote: > This is somewhat off-topic, but if I may be permitted a newbie's indulgence: > > Although a prior VMS/NT guy, I am evidently going to have some input as to which o.s. to run on a new server that will be handing a large Oracle database.  The decision is whether to use UNIX, commercial or otherwise, or one of the Linux flavors.  The vendor doing the initial install and database merge with proprietary s.w. clearly favors and will support Sun's UNIX.  Anything else and they will incrementally back off supporting it.  > > Another factor is that there is currently no one in house with UNIX or Linux expertise and at least one of the techies here would have to get ramped-up training very soon.  > > I'd be very interested in any thoughts folks in this group may have, as to preferences for either UNIX or Linux, and any particular flavors of either one. > > Thanks much for your consideration. > > Dave > Vermont Health Care Administration > 89 Main Street > Montpelier, VT 05602 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > P.S.  I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion of root passwords over the last day or so, quite interesting and informative.  > We aim to please jeff ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jeffry Smith      Technical Sales Consultant     Mission Critical Linux [EMAIL PROTECTED]   phone:603.930.9379   fax:978.446.9470 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thought for today:  The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse.