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Buying Unix?
BarefootClown asks: "I'm currently the sysadmin for the University of Oklahoma Aviation Department. (I know the website looks horrible, it's being redesigned right now by somebody with talent.) Our systems here include two Intel-based servers, one running Windows 2000, one running Linux. The webserver is running on the Linux box. We need a new server, as the old one is about to die (I've lost two of the six hard drives, only one of the two processors is working, and it's just old--we got it second-hand). My boss has been very indulgent in letting me put Linux on a few boxes here, including the webserver, and a couple of web-only terminals (weather/flight planning stations), but he's expressed concern that, if I were to leave my job for some reason, having *nix machines would leave the department unsupported, and out of luck if problems were to occur. Our official departmental (one level up) support channel doesn't support Unix (he didn't support Windows 2000 until the end of last year...), though I might be able to talk to Campus support. This is all becoming a concern because I want to replace the dying box with a Sun NetraX1, which (obviously) doesn't even have the option of running Windows. Any suggestions on how I can convince my boss that it's worth doing? The price on that box is fabulous, at just a bit over a thousand (US) dollars out the door. The nearest PC/Linux box from Dell is about $1400. It seems to me that I know enough *nix people on campus who are looking for jobs that he wouldn't have trouble finding support if I were to leave. How do I convince him that Unix isn't that big of a risk?"
First, I can personally attest that there is a subculture of Unix users at OU (University of Oklahoma) who use Unix extensively. Most people, at least engineers, eventually get acquainted with it. If student employment is a possibility, they can get someone to work on a Unix box. Second, Unix boxes seem to require less maintenance than a Window box; once you have the server up and running, you rarely have to mess with it except for web content changes. Remind him that Apache has greater market penetration that IIS and has a far better history, security-wise, than IIS. Lastly, 'atlas', which runs our mail and OU's web site, is a big Solaris box.
The fact that you know what you're doing, and your boss won't listen or take your advice speaks volumes. You need to *tell* you boss that you know what the best solution is, and if he doesen't have a vaid reason for going with your decision - find gainfull employment elsewhere.
If you *really* know Unix, you can find work easily - in places wheere a $1500 server is cosidered worth it just for experimentation alone.
So unless there are mitigating circumstances - get out of there.
PS: Your *current* website works fine: it meets the goals that really matter: it lets you get information quickly and easily. It appears to be lynx comapatable - so blind people can use it, I imagine.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
The Netra X1 was the original $995 1U server. The Sun V100 is a tad deeper, has an internal CD-ROM drive, uses the same logic board, is also 1U and costs $995. The only other difference I'm aware of is the version of Solaris 8 that is shipped with the two machines -- X1 has stock Solaris 8, V100 also has a bunch of iPlanet ("SunONE") software included. If you opt for Solaris 9, you get everything anyway...regardless if you go X1 or V100. Educational price on the X1 and V100 is $795.
Sun replaced the Netra X1 with the Sunfire V100 (for the same price). It is a great value. I bought one of each for my company. Incidentally, you can add any IDE drive into the system easily and non-Sun RAM works fine. I bought the $995 web special (40 GB HD and 128 MB RAM) and added 2 - 512 MB RAM chips ($299 each) and a WD 120 GB HD ($239) to give me a 64 bit Solaris system with 1.1 GB RAM and 160 GB of disk space for well under $2000, including tax and shipping). It even comes with licenses for Netscape Web Server and other stuff. Mine's running a full install of Oracle RDBMS and 9iAS (both the Enterprise Edition). It's a great development system. It seems like a good choice for non-disk intensive production systems also (not for a production RDBMS, need fast SCSI disks for that).
I have a farm of Netra X1s. Based on my experience, I would not recommend them. They just don't have the oomph.
We have found the X1 (now the V100) to be of decent performance... more power than the much larger Sun Enterprise 150s that we bought for 14x as much just a few years ago. The only downside of the X1 for my use is the 2 GB ram cap. Our servers cache almost everything, and the more ram we can cram in each box, the better. The slow-only-by-todays-standards 500 MHz UltraSPARC IIe CPU is better than any UltraSPARC I and on-par with the insanely expensive 450 MHz UltraSPARC II used in pre-UltraSPARC III hardware.
The X1 ain't an UltraSPARC III box, but it isn't priced like one either. It's not an Origin 3800, it's not a Cray. It's a great little box with a more than fair price.
If you need a rock-solid stable box that can use generic PC133 ram and IDE drives.... and you're like the 99% of server users that don't require insane cutting-edge CPU power, then the X1 is for you.
Rumor has it, faster and 2 CPU versions will be available before fall... I hope Sun does something about their insane Solaris 9 license issues before then.