Linux Establishment Issues Retort to Sun
Mar 11th, 06:43 UTC
What follows is an open letter to Shahin Khan, Chief Competitive Officer, Sun Microsystems, from Dr. Alexander Tormasov, SWsoft's Chief Scientist, of behalf of the Open Source Community.
New Page 1
Dear Mr. Khan,
On February 8th of this year, Sun announced plans to embrace the
Linux operating system. Scott McNealy, dressed like a penguin, even said, "We
love Linux, and I hope there isn't any doubt about it."
Apparently, you did not get the "memo," as on February 20th,
you issued a misguided condemnation of Linux and, more specifically, Linux on
the Mainframe.
In sharp contract to Sun's condemnation of Linux on the
mainframe, the ever-growing enterprise Linux community feels that within seven
(7) years Linux will become the dominant server OS in the datacenter, replacing
UNIX-like systems such as Solaris, AIX, and HPUX. A unified Linux presence by
Sun, Compaq, HP, Dell, and IBM will have enough momentum to effectively battle
Microsoft's entrée into the datacenter.
As Mr. McNealy previously
stated, server companies love Linux. IBM loves Linux because according to Bill
Zeitler the head of IBM's server group, IBM invested $1B in Linux then "recouped
most of it in the first year in sales of software and systems.[i]"
At this rate of return, it's easy to understand Sun's fear of losing marketshare
at the high-end and desire to reap the benefits of enterprise Linux.
*Even the German government loves Linux, as their parliament recently
switched from Microsoft to Linux, with one member saying it was irresponsible to
entrust the work of
Parliament to "closed-source software."
IBM's recent announcement of the z800 Linux mainframe
represents a big win for the Linux community. Linux is emerging as the default
OS for major enterprise-class servers. Although Sun's recent (and confusing)
announcement about Linux tries to push customers to use Solaris at the core of
the datacenter and Linux at the edge, the current trend indicates that Linux on
the mainframe is used as the core of the datacenter and Linux on Intel-based
servers are used as the edge.
While Sun's Linux announcement of February 7 tries to
position Solaris as the big brother to Linux, the Linux community feels that
with the high reliability of IBM's zSeries mainframe, Linux is positioned to
dominate the core as well as the edge of the datacenter. In the statement, Ed
Zander, Sun president and CEO, subjugates Linux to only "low-end servers."
However, the Linux community refuses to buy into claims by Zander that Linux
will be pushed aside to the edge of the datacenter. The fact is that Linux is
stable and scalable enough for the core of the datacenter.
On average, the mainframe has 50-year uptimes achieved
through redundant processing unit (PU) error-checking, self-healing by automatic
identification of damaged PUs and automatic replacement with spare healthy PUs
embedded in the system, and the ability to hotswap hardware components with no
downtime. When mainframe capacity is upgraded, system administrators can take
advantage of the zSeries's Capacity Upgrade on Demand feature which allows the
switching on of additional CPUs, memory, disk and channels with zero service
interruption.
Sun claims that Linux is "designed for Intel" and that
"Linux on the mainframe is complicated." This obviously shows a lack of
understanding of Linux since Linux is widely available in Alpha, PowerPC, ARM,
and Sparc systems. Sun must also know that some of Sun's customers are running
Linux on Sparc on partitions in Sun's high-end servers to take advantage of
Linux applications. Linux is appropriate for the mainframe and the mainframe is
the standard for the core of the datacenter.
Further, the mainframe is specifically designed for high
usage scenarios. For example, the processor cache memory has extremely high
memory bandwidth. In the case of the zSeries, there are two 16 MB L2 caches
that are shared by 6 to 10 PUs each. Unlike non-mainframe processor caches, the
mainframe processor caches are highly connected with sophisticated interconnect
logic. Again, the end-result is better performance from the hardware.
IBM's VM, the most widely used and respected virtual
machine technology in the world, has been refined over the last decade for
high-end enterprise use and is actively used by the majority of Fortune 1,000
companies. Sun's positioning of z/VM as a secondary layered OS is not accurate
as z/VM has support for all the same hardware as z/OS and is used to run z/OS
itself.
IBM is developing enterprise features that further
integrate Linux and their mainframes including IBM's Integrated Facility for
Linux (IFL) which allows the management of multiple Linux images. This means
less system administrators (and less cost) to manage Linux servers. Using LPAR
and z/VM, mainframe users can run and manage multiple instances of z/OS and
Linux on the same machine, getting the best of both worlds on a single server.
A few years ago, IBM announced the ability to run 41,800
instances of Linux on a single mainframe with VM and has since deployed Linux on
VM at the majority of the Fortune 1000. Their recent announcement of their z800
Raptor Linux mainframe proves that there is serious demand in the enterprise for
the Linux OS technology on the world's most reliable hardware platform with the
world's most advanced and widely used VM technology.
While demand for Linux on mainframes remains high, Sun is
correct that 20 Linux instances on the mainframe is not economically feasible
for most users. However, the facts are again twisted. Sun claims low-end
pricing on the mainframe starts at $400,000 ; however, according to IBM, pricing
actually starts at $250,000. In addition, due to the high scalability of the
mainframe, Sun's example of consolidating 20 Linux servers is faulty.
Mainframes are used to consolidate hundreds and, in some cases thousands, of
Linux servers. With high numbers of users, mainframes have excellent ROIs.
For smaller server consolidation deploys, Linux, not Solaris, is also the
best answer. Technologies such as Virtuozzo (www.virtuozzo.com)
allow the consolidation of hundreds of Linux servers on commodity Intel-based
servers costing less than $3,000. Although Sun claims that using Linux for
server consolidation requires applications to be "recompiled and recertified,"
the fact is that Linux server consolidation on Intel servers with Virtuozzo
requires no recompilation or recertification. Solaris will encounter Linux not
only on high-end mainframes, but also on lower-cost deployments with 4-way and
8-way Intel-based servers and even low-cost 1-way Intel servers.
Although Sun tries to position Linux on the mainframe as a
closed and proprietary system, Sun's technology remains more closed than Linux
and is thus far less attractive to many system architects in enterprises.
Although Sun releases some portions (not the interesting parts) of the source
code for Solaris 8, the source code for the upcoming Solaris 9 remains closed.
SWsoft went through the lengthy process of trying to get full access to the
Solaris source code and finally gave up in frustration, forcing us to put
software development for Solaris on hold.
No one can dispute that Sun is, and will always continue to
be a Silicon Valley staple; however, what role your company plays in the future
is not as certain. It is sure to play a larger role if it fully embraces Linux
and dumps its current dual-OS strategy that is confusing customers. Linux will
ultimately win on the edge and in the core of the datacenter. On behalf of the
Linux community, which has grown to millions of people, companies and
organizations around the world, I encourage you to recognize Linux's place at
all levels of the data center to work with the Open Source community to grow the
server consolidation market.
If you like, we can send you a penguin suit of your own, or you can use Scott's.
Regards,
Dr. Alexander Tormasov
Linux Developer
SWsoft
Chief Scientist
[i]
Shankland, Stephen. CNET. IBM: Linux investment nearly recouped
(http://news.com.com/2100-1001-825723.html)
(Submitted by Alex Plant of SWsoft)
|
