Linux Servers Break out of HPC into Enterprise

Jane Walker writes "Watch out, IBM, Dell and HP. Linux server vendors that have carved out a space in high-performance computing markets are taking their tailor-made servers into new enterprise markets, providing a welcome change for businesses that want to save money and get customized products."

Comments

Hmm...

[corychristison]

I've always been a fan of building, installing and maintaining my own Linux server. :-)

Re:Hmm...

[MindStalker]

Yes, but sadly its difficult to find server quality highend parts. I'm refering to such things and redundant hot swap parts. If you've ever had your hands on decent power edge server, you wouldn't want to give it up.

Linux the Only Solution

[gurutc]

We need to back up 2 Terabytes nightly from 65 schools for our district. RSYNC on a Linux backup server has been the only way we have found that works for this. And we are saving a cool quarter million dollars yearly versus a commercial enterprise solution.

Re:Linux the Only Solution

[gurutc]

Yes, I know RSYNC runs on Windows too and can even be configured as a Windows service. I set the system up initially with that configuration, and for smaller setups it would be adequate. But to run it in Windows you have to use the cygwin dll and a shell that is still contained in the Windows kernel. With data streams coming from dozens of sites the Windows server was overwhelmed, particularly in network and disk bottlenecks. Windows wasn't going to cut it at the level that we needed. But with Linux I was able to tune more parameters at the disk, memory, and network stack levels.

into Enterprise...

[hkgroove]

Does this mean Scotty can now get more power when Kirk asks for it?

Re:Linux Servers?

[eln]

Windows doesn't make servers either, but we still call servers that run Windows "Windows Servers." Either that or "boat anchors."

Title taken from TV Guide?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Linux Servers Break out of HPC into Enterprise"

Am I the only one that thinks this looks like an episode synopsis you could see in TV Guide for a Star Trek episode?

"Captain! The Linux Servers have broken out of the Hydrogen Pressure Chamber! They're spreading like Tribbles! We can't hold them off for long!"

;-)

Linux has enterprise class support now

[Anonymous Coward]

EMC (leading enterprise class storage provider) has made it possible to use EMC Symmetrix and EMC Clariion enterprise storage cabinets with Linux. HP has ported HP ServiceGuard - enterprise level high availability cluster software to Linux. Yes, I would say Linux is enterprise ready.

Take my PowerEdge's please

[wsanders]

No, it's difficult to find reliable free distros that will support the features of higher-end woes. I still subscribe to the Poweredge Linux list and it is full of tales of woe from people trying to use free distros, mostly due to RAID controlelr problems.

OTOH, Dells with supported (RHEL and SUSE) distros seem to be OK, and DL380s (The Cheap Server of the Gods) seems to be even better, although I had a heck of a time a few months ago tring to get the serial port and LOM to work together during boot. (Mostly that was incompetent HP support. Eventually we figrued out the magic BIOS settings to get it to work.)

So realible hardware is out there but it seems to be going hand in hand with the pay-for-support distros nowadays.

Re:How exactly do I save money with Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Each license of Redhat Advanced Server Linux costs me about $1200. How exactly does this save me money?

If you read TFA, you'll find several companies providing their own solutions with no redhat licenses involved. You can download all of the Redhat enterprise software right now for free (open source != licenses) and create a new company providing a specific solution for specific customers.

THat's not something you can do with the "one-size-fits-all" windows solutions.

Are we...

[labratuk]

...in a five year timewarp?

ps- 'Enterprise' doesn't mean anything.

Save money by not being a fool.

[woolio]

Only fools would pay for $1200/license to use somebody's pre-packaged open-source software.

If you have more than one license, you could easily hire someone full-time to do upgrades on your servers and use a free linux distribution like Fedora or Gentoo. (Or even consider the *BSDs). Plus you get someone you can immediately contact in the case of a problem (rather than a phone number).

I realize you are probably concened with uptime and availablity (and hence pay for the enterprise editions), but what kind of stuff are you really doing? A simple web or sql server can be handled very easily by a half-way competent admin. Yes it may be vitually important, but it if it is simple, then why bother with Redhat?

And if it isn't so simple, then do you really want Redhat holding the gonads of your operations? What are they going to do for you that a dedicated employee wouldn't?

Re:Save money by not being a fool.

[jschottm]

Only fools would pay for $1200/license to use somebody's pre-packaged open-source software.

Um, yeah... The enterprise experience you base this statement on is?

$1,200/license doesn't add up to all that much in the grand scheme of things. Assuming you have a sysadmin total cost of $50/hour - that's compensation plus employer's side of FICA plus bennies. At that rate, a $1,200 license pays for itself if it saves 24 hours of sysadmin time. A well designed packaging and management system is capable of doing that.

Sure, it doesn't take *that* long to compile and distribute binaries, but then there's the matter of testing. Do you know that kernel update won't cause 100% CPU utilization when Apache tries to send mail? Do you know that software piece foo won't interfere with software piece bar? That's part of what paying the big money is supposed to ensure - that it's been carefully tested. Does that mean you shouldn't put it into your test environment before deploying? No, but it means you're much less likely to find problems and have to spend time debugging them.

"Enterprise" downtime costs add up real fast. If 100 people costing an average of $15/hour rely on a server and it goes down for an hour, that's $1500 of wasted time. I've been in the situation where a key database server that many more users at a much higher cost went down an average of an hour a week consistantly.

There's also the matter that the companies that are charging that kind of money for Linux and other open source software licenses are the ones footing the bill for large amounts of the development going on. Paying them ensures that further development occurs.

If you have more than one license, you could easily hire someone full-time to do upgrades on your servers and use a free linux distribution like Fedora or Gentoo.

So, what is the guaranteed amount of time that those OSes will be supported by their vendors? A few months? A year and change? In the enterprise world, it's not uncommon for a server to be put into service and run for four or five years. Once they're up, running, and stable, you apply the security fixes and that's about it. Having to switch to a newed version of the OS every 1.5 years when the vendor drops security patches for it is expensive and stupid, particularly when you have to go through the stability testing phase again. Maintaining four and five year old software isn't sexy, so you're much less likely to find a user supported distro keeping anchient versions patched than commercial distros.

And if it isn't so simple, then do you really want Redhat holding the gonads of your operations? What are they going to do for you that a dedicated employee wouldn't?

Not quit, not get hit by a bus, do the afore mentioned testing, write the kernel, GUI, etc. If you're running RH, you can find a few hundred people who can walk in off the street and handle a simple server in virtually no time. You can't do the same with Gentoo.

And then there's also the fact that certain enterprise software is only certified to work on the big commercial distros, so if you ever need help with a problem, you better hope that you're running one of them.

Just how is this a threat to IBM, HP, Dell?

[NorbrookC]

The submission makes it seem like these companies are moving into the "enterprise-level computing" arena dominated by the big players. What the article ends up saying, after the hype, is that these companies are putting together custom-build server sets that use Linux. This is news? Oh, wait, they're "breaking out of HPC" .. yet everything in the article is pretty much devoted to describing their HPC builds and customers. Yes, that's neat, but what does that mean in terms of competing with the big three? Ah...they have plans to move into the "enterprise"! OK, again, it's neat what they're doing, but they're still niche players, and I'm still not seeing how they're any threat to Dell, HP, or IBM. Those three already have and support Linux, a pretty good range of hardware, support, and marketing capability. I think there's a place for these other companies, and they're doing some really incredible things with Linux - but I don't see them pushing the big three.

This is how you save money with Linux

[WebCowboy]

Each license of Redhat Advanced Server Linux costs me about $1200.

Yup, that it does...so if I choose to use this box for a PostgreSQL database server it costs me $1200...if I decide I want RedHat's support and whatever other goodies. If I don't I can go to Novell and get their enterprise product for as little as $350 (1 or 2 CPUs) and no more than $900 (up to 16 CPUs). Or I can roll my own server using a no-cost distribution.

Note something about these prices too--they are based on servers/server processors. There are no CALs or client limitations...so even if you decide that buying a commercial enterprise distro is worth it, your licensing costs are $1200/$900/$350...period. You can use your RedHat (or SuSE or whatever) server with a database to serve up, say, an accounting system for an enterprise with 1000 users. Required licensing is as follows:

SuSe + PostgreSQL: $900
RH + PostgreSQL: $1200
Windows 2003 Server + MSSQL 2005: $9000 *

* W2k3 standard ($1000) with external connector license ($2000) + 1 SQL 2005 standard processor license ($6000)

Note that if you want to use a multi-processor box the Microsoft solution gets even more expensive...with SuSE and RedHat the price is for systems that support multiprocessing up to 16-way...that's a savings of $7800 to $8100 in licensing for a single server. And enterprises have a lot of servers. Seems to me that it'd be worth looking at.

Then there are the intangables: There are more viruses released per day for windows than there have been for Linux during its entire existence. There are free (and Free) software tools often bundled with Linux distros that are extra cost for Windows. Remote and automated management of Linux boxes is much more powerful than for Windows. If you want terminal services it is no extra cost for Linux--it is an in-built capability of X, whereas you have to pay through the nose to get terminal services licensing for Windows. The cost advantages go on and on.