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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?"
I suppose just to play Devil's Advocate:
I would presume from the post that they likely don't NEED any more software packages. They likely don't NEED more people with experience administering Linux.
What they need is to maintain the existence that their business has, but get their shiny new RAID to work.
What we know:
(1) They currently run SCO, and everything they have runs in SCO
(2) They need support for this shiny new RAID
What we don't know:
- How much the upgrade is going to cost them from SCO
- If there are any gotchas that they will run into trying to run their applications within Linux
- If the staff is capable of administrating Linux reasonably
So, is it worth the money to investigate Linux? I certainly wouldn't change something that Works for a new Unknown, even if it is demonstrably cheaper, without putting in some serious Time and Effort to test the new Unknown, and that's going to eat up a lot of that Demonstrably Cheaper difference.
As the article says, the programmers have demonstrated that Linux can process their information much faster, but do they need much faster? I mean really.. do I need a 2.5GHz P4 to word process, or can I continue using my P5/100 laptop? I highly doubt I would notice any difference except that the load time for OO.ORG would decrease from about Forever to about Half of Forever.
I would say to start testing Linux. Make sure that Linux can do what needs to be done. But if you need it up and running --now-- with the new hardware, you're gonna have to go with SCO for now.. but I would definitely say get into the Linux testing right now, because as everyone else here points out, SCO may not be around when the lawsuits involving Linux are done!
Trust me, I have no love for SCO, but look at things realistically with your mind, and not with just your heart.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I'd suggest looking into UnitedLinux; heck, even SCO likes it! Evaluate it and see if that's more compatible out of the box with your stuff.
If you want a second opinion, here's some more advice; he also confirms that it's easier to move existing SCO stuff over to UnitedLinux than it would be to switch to RedHat Linux, for example.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Summary: you have a working SCO 5.0.5 system, required hardware upgrades are driving a minor software upgrade to 5.0.7 with presumably low associated risks.
Question: is it worth a major software change to Linux with high associated risks? This change is unplanned and the programmers have already said they're worried about potential technical problems.
Answer: no. You shouldn't be using a required hardware upgrade to drive a major software change. That's a bad practise to get into. You should be approving the minor software upgrade to SCO 5.0.7.
However: given the lower TCO of Linux and the proven higher performance with your application, you should also be proposing a long-term project to evaluate a migration to Linux. The evaluation should include a risk assessment, full technical approval from the programmers, consideration of knock-on costs like training and support, etc.
Never use minor changes with low risk to drive major changes with high risk. It makes you look like a cowboy. If the SCO system was failing and there was an impending deadline and the 5.0.7 software upgrade carried a high risk... THEN and ONLY then would a hasty Linux migration have any merit. I doubt that's the case. Don't put your balls on the block when this should be a simple low-risk software upgrade.
Their programmers have demonstrated that a Linux box can process records much faster
If this is true, then it seems to me like a small step to just create a Linux shadow system operating in tandem with the existing SCO system.
If the shadow system demonstrates the needed performance, reliability and maintainability that your organization requires after some weeks or even months, then it will be a simple matter to switch the roles of the two systems and ultimately unplug the SCO box and redeploy it if the cost of that "security blanket" is too high.
"Provided by the management for your protection."