First National Bank of Omaha throws Sun Out

Grifter writes " First National Bank of Omaha said this week that it's nearing completion of a complete changeout of its distributed server infrastructure for a mainframe and blade-server architecture based on Linux. While only 80% complete, the move is already expected to save the company $1.8 million this year in operating expenses and another $9.6 million through 2011." More proof that banks know how to save money.

Comments

Slashdot title is strongly misleading

[marat]

Bank throws out Sun not in favor of Linux, but in favor IBM zSeries mainframe and other IBM's big and small iron. Since words "ibm NEAR cheap" never returned many matches in search (you know the famous "IBM hardware is slow, but expensive"), it's probably an example of some special deal, not a tendency. Nothing to see here... but, probably, "bank managers know how to earn money"?

Re:Slashdot title is strongly misleading

[Old Uncle Bill]

Have you looked and any of the benchmarks lately for Unix based hardware? IBM is the fastest out there and has been for a while. Sun is one of the slowest platforms you can buy, and comparative pricewise to IBM. While Linux on Intel is pretty fast, and definitely the best bang for your buck, most banks are not betting on it yet. There is a lot that goes with that, like a lot of banking software does not run on Linux. Sun is no longer a competitor in the hardware arena, as much as it pains me to say it. Five years ago I was the biggest Sun biggot you could find. Now all of my clients only use Sun to beat up IBM on price, and they typically get a better price with IBM than Sun and much better performance. Don't underestimate IBM performance and pricing, it's not 1987. I price out multi-million dollar infrastructures for my banking clients every day of the week, and trust me, they are looking at cost/performance, not names. The new pSeries server rock in an unbelieveable fashion (and I don't work for them).

Here's the problem

[zemoo]

Here's the problem - quote:

Kucera said he would have considered Sun Microsystems Inc. products had they been available. But when he began hunting for a way to consolidate his infrastructure in 2003, Sun had nothing to offer in the way of blade servers or Linux.

I'm planning to buy a big Unix Server. Think I can go with Microsoft?

Re:Other banks?

[Old Uncle Bill]

I wonder how many other banks are doing this, but don't shout it from the rooftops?

Speaking from direct experience, not that much. They are starting to look into it seriously, and I say go for it, but they are starting really small. I suspect in the next few years many of their mission critical apps will be running on linux, but not many of them are today. Oracle has really been pushing RAC/10g on linux, with mixed results. A few of my clients have gone to marketing seminars with Oracle and come out preaching, but once their dbas go through the actual classes they have completely bailed on the idea. I don't think that speaks negatively on linux, just the whole RAC solution in general. It's a big bet and the reasoning is simpler than you would think. It doesn't come down to whether the solution actually works. It comes down to not wanting to be the infrastructure manager when the press release goes out saying your RAC/Linux database went down for several hours in the middle of the day. No one wants that Computerworld interview. I'm a huge fan of linux, and I think it is ready for prime time, but don't look to financial institutions to set the pace. They are in the business of making money, not trying to be bleeding edge on technology. The savings honestly is not that great in the scheme of things. Consider saving a couple hundred grand on going with a linux solution with an hour of downtime that costs 500K. This does not mean linux is less reliable, but the suits are going to question your motives for going with this "linooks" thing.