Deciding Between SCO and Linux?

wolfbane01 asks: "I spend some time giving tech suggestions to a medium sized business firm (~100 employees) with a large amount of demand placed on their file server. Their current server is a dual Pentium 500 with RAID array and they are looking to upgrade it. The dilemma is the current server OS is running SCO OpenServer 5.0.5, and their new raid array requires 5.0.7. Their programmers have demonstrated that a Linux box can process records much faster, but are still worried about the investment and potential problems that switching OSes would entail. I have already mentioned the cheaper price and the community availability when problems come up, but what other reasons have Slashdot readers come up with for a switch? What arguments am I forgetting that make Linux more attractive then SCO? Should I advise against switching to Linux and advocate them sticking to SCO? Is SCO going to even be in business long enough to make the upgrades product cycle?"

Comments

SMP...

[BigBadDude]

SMP support in Linux is gettting better and better.

SCO dont have one yet, they got one in their *Ware, but they will probably remove it as it uses an IBM patent :)

Re:SMP...

[Anonymous Coward]

shut up, SCO owns SMP.

in fact, SCO also owns CPU, RAM, CIA, USB and anything ever attached to any of these.

[no kidding, read the fine print in your license]

Don't switch yet

[reynaert]

If the programmers still have doubts, don't switch. It sounds like they just did a couple benchmarks, and didn't port the complete system yet. Until they demonstrate everything works on Linux, you should stick to SCO. Your first priority should be with the firm, not with your /. karma. So just do that little update to 5.0.7.

(Unless that little update breaks your system. In that case you've got nothing to lose with switching :)

Leaving sco behind will let you focus.

[sshack]

Leaving sco behind will let you focus on your core business.
I was involved in a business that migrated from SGI and SCO boxes to Linux, we saw a dramatic drop in IT costs and at the same time increased flexability. Not to mention we didn't have to pay $150 for a tcpip stack (this was back in '97-99 might have changed).

Not to mention, that you have a lot more commercial
applications available on Linux. Really, sco is a mess technically
they're behind the times, expensive and just plain crufty. Your programmers will learn to love linux in short order. Further, the C*O's will love linux too. With SCO they're probably used to hearing "Can't be done" or "we'll have to buy a license", it's a nice change to hear "sure, i'll do that this afternoon" or "we can already do that".

Ok, here's my exp

[jsse]

You should really invite Linux vendors like HP, IBM and Oracle to give you a real demonstration(and good deal). Here's a brief of our recent deal with them:

Oracle 9iAS RAC(clustering)
Dell RAID array for share storage of the cluster nodes
RedHat 9.1 Advance Server(I wish I'd use something else but Oracle only support RH)

The setup is simple atm, two 2-way Xeon to form a RAC(cluster) which share the same RAID array, running on RH AS. The entire deal is around US$40000 before best offer.

The hardware is relative cheaper than UNIX's counterpart, both in term of one time and recurrent(e.g. maintenance) cost. The major cost center is the share storage and (SURPRISE) Redhat AS, which charges US$5,000 per x86 processor

I've to say Oracle RAC on RH AS is a very(if not most) stupid thing Oracle has been doing. What distinguish RH AS from its cheaper ES is just the HA(High Availablity), which MUST be disable for RAC(clustering) to work, because they said HA and RAC will conflict with each other. Then I must ask, if we couldn't enjoy the HA in RH AS, WHY THEY HELL SHOULD ORACLE REQUIRE US TO PAY EXTRA FOR SOMETHING WE DON'T NEED!!!

Damn, the exp sharing turns out to be a ranting, sorry about that. :(