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."
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.
Moderation in All Things... Especially Moderation - gurutc
Does this mean Scotty can now get more power when Kirk asks for it?
Windows doesn't make servers either, but we still call servers that run Windows "Windows Servers." Either that or "boat anchors."
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.
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.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"