Thanks to all excellent comments, I appreciate it... orlando put it succintly - we're looking at linux as a platform for a specific application, so desktop matters or interoperability with other OS is not really important in this case. i would say it's arguments that give reason to believe the app can be made to run better in linux than windows. the main issue we see now is scalability; it looks like we have seen the limits of how much transactions the application (as is it written now) is capable of handling per box. to scale, we've been adding more and more boxes. with demand growing, i find it insane to add more and more instances of the apps at the rate we're doing now. before long, it will become a supportability issue, not of the app, but of the sheer amount of OS instances and hardware the NOC is supporting. and yes, rise in data center power cost is something not hard to notice recently.
we started with "what ifs". what if it's linux, will it scale better? of course it's highly dependent on the application code but granting all else equal, is there something in linux kernel that can help the app run better that just cant be easily achieved under windows? so this whole initiative started under taht mindset. so when Michael said we have to look at the speed increases we will get if we move over to Linux, i couldnt agree more. it would be nice to hear comments from people who have development experience on linux/windows. looking at profiler data, for example, the cpu cost of context switches on this application is high so if that's better by say 20% in linux, that will be a great deal of scalability for us. we're looking at things why linux can be better along that nature. the development team's very good at what they do (c++), but for historical reasons, they develop on windows. needless to say, they're very familiar with making their product work well within the windows framework. moving to linux is no way going to be easy at this stage but it will be done if there's reason to. my end goal for this intiative is to obtain funding to hire a software engineer to write one component of the application on linux, then we can do tests against its windows cousin, and from there, we can make go-forward plans. why do missions like this fall on new joiners? ;) thanks, vic On Feb 10, 2008 9:30 AM, Orlando Andico <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Since Victor mentions he has joined a telecoms vendor, he's not > talking about Linux on the desktop. He's talking about Linux inside > the box. > > Let me think -- SMSC, HLR, SDP. These types of boxes. > > I know of a (local to Philippines) telecoms ISV whose entire system > (including a complete MVNO system) runs on Windows. For these types of > folks, who are also heavily invested in the Windows development model, > it is very difficult to shift. > > However, all of the major telecom vendors either (a) target Linux as a > fully-supported platform; or (b) are shifting from proprietary Unix to > Linux. There is an OSDL initiative, Carrier Grade Linux, which is > supported by all the large vendors. > > Oracle has a telecoms infrastructure called Carrier Grade Framework > that runs on top of Linux on Intel. > > Nokia Siemens, Ericsson, and Lucent are all running their next-gen > platforms on Linux. That alone should be a valid argument for the > suitability of Linux in a carrier environment. The Large Local Telco > (you all know who I mean...) also has a huge investment in Linux. > > I think for telecoms environment, security issues in Windows are not > really that important -- because the environment is typically very > constrained and controlled. And so, I would have to say, aside from > TCO and licensing issues, there is really no great value of using > Linux over Windows. > > > > On Feb 10, 2008 7:33 AM, Victor Sien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I'm new to the list so a little introduction :) i used to be a member of > > plug a decade ago.. i've been using/managing linux since 1995 until > around 5 > > years ago when i strayed into other areas - storage, telecoms, etc... > few > > months ago i joined a telecoms vendor that develops a messaging > solution, of > > which the core component runs on windows 2003. we're hoping to change > that > > and convince top management to consider development under linux over the > > long term. but i had to build the case which i thought was easy.. so the > > first thing i looked at are the support logs and was surprised there > werent > > any significant number of OS crashes, and the windows part of the > > infrastructure enjoy a very healthy uptime. that quickly shot down my > > argument on stability. i can always support my argument that linux can > also > > provide a stable/scaleable platform, but since the company has invested > so > > much on a windows-centric development team, i figure i should put up a > case > > based on the idea that linux is better than windows (stability, > performance, > > and scalability) if we have to shake things up. > _________________________________________________ > Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List > [email protected] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) > Read the Guidelines: http://linux.org.ph/lists > Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph >
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