The Steady Decline of Unix

stinkymountain writes "Unix, the core server operating system in enterprise networks for decades, now finds itself in a slow, inexorable decline, according to Network World. Jean Bozman, research vice president at IDC Enterprise Server Group, attributes the decline to platform migration issues; competition from Linux and Microsoft; more efficient hardware with more powerful processor cores; and the abundance of Unix-specific apps that can now also run on competitor's servers."

Comments

Uh huh

[MightyMartian]

So the bulk of Unix's decline comes from competing *nixes, in particularly Linux.

News at 11.

Re:Uh huh

[who_stole_my_kidneys]

The decline is from the price point. My last place of employment had 1 HP UX server that costed upwards of 25K for software and specific HP hardware to run on. migrating to windows cost a fraction of that in OS licenses and hardware, even though it took 8 windows servers to do what the one UX server did, it was still cheaper.

Re:Uh huh

[PPH]

Likewise, there has been an alarming drop in the number of people who use Kleenex when they blow their nose.

Re:Uh huh

[gstoddart]

Combine that with the fact that Solaris is now in the hands of Oracle, who are squeezing out everybody who doesn't have a support contract and pissing off people who used to use it ... or that HPUX is still in the hands of HP (where technology goes to die) ... and what's even left?

AIX is still around, but I have no idea of how widespread. Beyond that, I'm hard pressed to think of another commercial version of UNIX I've encountered. (That doesn't mean they don't exist, but they were never in any shops I was in.)

That pretty much leaves Linux as the primary UNIX-like-thing for most people.

Re:Uh huh

[localman57]

Why would anyone in their right mind switch servers from HP-UX to Windows?

Why wouldn't one? Based solely on who_stole_my_kidney's anecdotal argument, and your rather content-free counter-argument, I'd be inclined to follow his advice.

Re:Uh huh

[localman57]

Yeah, but that's just splitting hairs. If you factor in all the *nex's , people are blowing about the same amount. It's just more diversified.

Re:Uh huh

[telekon]

"Reports of my decline have been greatly exaggerated."
    -- UNIX

Re:Uh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do we even need to have this conversation? If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck it isn't a duck unless it is branded a duck? This is so fucking stupid. Linux is a UNIX type of operating system, so UNIX isn't in decline.

Re:Uh huh

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Apparently SCO UNIXware is still around, though I assume that it's more of an absurdist performance art piece with a couple of legacy customers than an actual operating system at this point.

Re:Uh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>W
>>>>H
>>>>>O
>>>>>>O
>>>>>>>S
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>H

Re:Uh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we here at Slashdot like to be accurate, especially when poking holes into other's arguments.

Linux is a kernel, nothing else. It's the distributions which are supposedly eating into UNIX's market share, but really just chewing away at Redmon's marketshare.

UNIX market share only appears to be dwindling because it takes less hardware to do the same jobs they were doing just a few years ago.

People are consolidating 10 to 20 servers onto single or two small/medium sized servers.

Total server counts go down, productivity goes through the roof - the numbers are just that numbers, without any details as to why they've shrunk.

Re:Uh huh

[Shatrat]

Because instead of replacing 1 HP-UX server with 8 Windows servers, it could have been replaced by 1 Linux server.

Re:Uh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle is the reason that my employer is switching from Solaris to Linux. We were one of Sun's biggest customers, too.

Re:Uh huh

[MightyMartian]

I'd be curious to know what exactly the HP-UX server did that could so easily be moved over to a cluster of Windows servers, myself. Apart from believing that one can buy eight servers with Windows Server licences and come out much less than $25k, I'm just trying to sort out what this server would have actually been running that one could simply go "Oh well, we're going to Windows now."

I've found damned few cases in my experience when wholesale moving from one platform ecosystem to another platform ecosystem was a viable activity in and of itself, unless it was part of a long term strategy of retooling and recoding. I've seen some organizations move from Unix to Linux, but generally with the notion that porting apps was relatively easy or had already been done. But to move from *nix to Windows is a big deal, unless you're running everything in Java EE, in which case why would you completely change your ecosystem with other *nix variants out there?

Re:Uh huh

[MightyMartian]

Other than to honor market doublespeak, so far as I'm concerned, you can lump Unix in with Linux, OS-X, QNX and the other variants and -likes that make up the *nix ecosystem. It's a helluva lot easier to port an application from Unix to, say, Linux, than it is to port from Unix to Windows, unless you use a compatibility layer like Cygwin. Man, I wouldn't want to use Cygwin too much on a production server. The only time I ever did it was to get a decent radius server running on a Windows machine. It worked reasonably well, but I was very happy to move to a Linux server due to glitches.

Re:Uh huh

[Chris Mattern]

Thing is, its amortization schedule was roughly 2 decades at least if I were to guess. They bought it in 1984, I last saw it in 1999, and I bet it's still running today if their CFO has anything to say about it. Anything after the amortization date is pure gravy for them, methinks.

If only it didn't require power and A/C, and if only it didn't require support. Power costs for one of these beasts is most likely all by itself more than it would cost to buy a modern replacement.

And support from IBM is astronomical, if it's even available. If you're not paying for support, well, that's another kind of cost. But you won't find out about it until the bill comes due.

Re:Uh huh

[PPH]

while some of the worlds largest organizations run Windows Server 2012.

Larger organizations can hide the TCO of an army of IT people better then small ones.

Re:Uh huh

[fahrbot-bot]

Linux is a UNIX type of operating system, so UNIX isn't in decline.

The article is mainly talking about the Unix versions like HP-UX, Solaris, etc... and the iron used to run them, focusing on installations that require many 9s of reliability, fault-tolerance / fail-over and up time. Their argument is that those systems are more mature, reliable and capable (and more expensive) than most Linux systems. Many installations are realizing that they don't need that all that and less "capable" Linux and/or x86 systems are just fine - for many things. Personally, I believe in using the right tool for the job, not necessarily the best and/or most expensive tool. The trick is defining the job correctly.

Re:Uh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows NT was certified as POSIX compliant.

Windows NT!

Re:Uh huh

[Penguinisto]

I can give the counter-arguments against using Windows:

* You're guaranteed to suffer every month for maintenance (Patch Tuesday), and require multiple machines not just for capacity-matching, but for redundancy if you want anywhere near the same uptime. In spite of an MCSE/MCSA being cheaper, one competent UNIX admin can maintain 3x the machine count than an MCSE/MCSA can - unless you feel like springing for a lot of pricey add-ons/upsells to keep admin FTE headcount down (e.g. automation via SCOM,SCCM and etc). It doesn't take too much for that SA contract cost to match or exceed the HP one, especially if the Microsoft products have the word "Enterprise" in the product title/license.

* All that aside, I haven't even touched on increased space, power consumption, cooling/HVAC, and etc... the costs scale up almost exponentially in larger installations.

Re:Uh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

server that costed upwards of 25K

"cost" works fine there. Please. I'm begging you.

Re:Uh huh

[SimonTheSoundMan]

If only it didn't require power and A/C, and if only it didn't require support. Power costs for one of these beasts is most likely all by itself more than it would cost to buy a modern replacement.

That's why we have OS X. It's powered by the users own sense of self importance.

It's Unix certified too.

Re: Uh huh

[samkass]

MacOS X's core OS is open source. You can download the kernel and recompile it and swap yours in if you want to, and all the standard user space stuff is basically FreeBSD.

Also, it is a certified UNIX 03 operating system, so it is more "UNIX" than Linux, which is what I assume you're comparing it to.

Re:Uh huh

[Gilmoure]

Gnubfap is my next band name.

Re:Uh huh

[Sylak]

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck it isn't a duck unless it is branded a duck?

It's not a DUCK®, it's a Waterfowl That Attenuates Quacking Noises. For copyright reasons, of course.

Re:Uh huh

[Desler]

XNU is a Mach 2.5 kernel with the BSD 4.3 userland layered on top. And it is not "reminiscent of Unix" it is certified Unix.

Re:Uh huh

[amorsen]

Because instead of replacing 1 HP-UX server with 8 Windows servers, it could have been replaced by 1 Linux server.

Only if the software runs on Linux. Quite a few important commercial software packages started out on HP-UX and Solaris (and AIX if you were "lucky") and was then ported to Windows once people started using x86-based servers and workstations. Porting to Linux would obviously have been a lot easier, but it didn't happen until later or not at all.

Running such software under Linux either meant running Linux on RISC hardware and using a compatibility layer or running the Windows version in Wine. Neither was particularly appealing.

Re:Uh huh

[fahrbot-bot]

Many installations are realizing that they don't need that all that and less "capable" Linux and/or x86 systems are just fine - for many things.

Are they? Or are they just realizing that a cluster of redundant, possibly virtualized, machines is just as reliable even if each single machine is not? Two linux boxes with 99% uptime each running the same service redundantly is equivalent to one machine with 99.99% uptime but I bet the linux boxes are cheaper.

That all really depends on the requirements and usage. The HP systems I've used are very capable with hardware and software support for redundant and/or fail-over NICs and SCSI etc... as well as a large back plane and LOTS of RAM and CPUs (I once used a Unix system at NASA with 1024 processors.) A cluster of real/virtual systems is not always equivalent. For example, we once had a CPU fail on a T600 and the system simply deconfigured it and rebooted - note: there are / were Unix systems like Tandem Non-Stop on which *any* component could be replaced on-the-fly. Most Linux systems are not as capable in this respect - perhaps we are talking about different types of "reliability."

The upshot (and the point of the article) is that there are more choices and people are taking a harder look at what's actually required. In many cases, smaller, less capable/expensive Linux (or BSD) systems are adequate, but sometimes you really do need something more. It's not a dig against Linux, just that there are different tools for different jobs.

Re:Uh huh

[amirulbahr]

Well it's Woosh-like but not WOOSH®

Re: Uh huh

[Midnight Thunder]

No it isn't open source. They haven't released their code in a long long time.

10.8.4 is the latest and is available: http://opensource.apple.com/release/mac-os-x-1084/

Note you should expect a few months delay between release of a new version of MacOS X and release of the open source components on this site, but up until now they have always delivered.

Re:How long has Netcraft been confirming BSD dead?

[morcego]

BSD confirmed Netcraft is dead.

I thought OS X was Unix

[cyfer2000]

If OS X is Unix, what do you call iOS. And if we take Linux as a kind of Unix, how about Android? Or maybe the title should be written as "the steady decline of Unix Server License sale"

Overlooking the obvious

[Frogg]

The article completely neglects the fact that OS X is a fully certified Unix, and, whilst OS X might not be overly popular in the server market, it certainly has a very large percentage of the desktop market. So yeah, perhaps the old-school companies that provide Unix OSes for servers may be in their 'last days', but Apple's OS X has brought Unix to the masses via the desktop, so Unix certainly isn't going to die any day soon.

Moronic analysts

[wiredlogic]

Errol Rasit, research director at Gartner, concurs that the primary cause of Unix weakness over the past decade is migration from the RISC platform to x86-processor based alternatives, which can run many Unix workloads, usually at attractive price/performance ratios.

x86 has been implemented on a RISC based core ever since the PentiumPro. RISC won. It didn't wither away. That transition made possible a performance boost allowing Intel to compete against the home-grown processors of the traditional Unix vendors who lacked the cash to invest in fab advancements needed to match pace.

Such are the fools pandering their vaunted "analysis" to the media these days.

Re:Moronic analysts

[Em Adespoton]

Errol Rasit, research director at Gartner, concurs that the primary cause of Unix weakness over the past decade is migration from the RISC platform to x86-processor based alternatives, which can run many Unix workloads, usually at attractive price/performance ratios.

x86 has been implemented on a RISC based core ever since the PentiumPro. RISC won. It didn't wither away. That transition made possible a performance boost allowing Intel to compete against the home-grown processors of the traditional Unix vendors who lacked the cash to invest in fab advancements needed to match pace.

Such are the fools pandering their vaunted "analysis" to the media these days.

Sorry, but it didn't win. RISC didn't get clobbered by CISC or vice versa; rather, they both got consumed by VLIW. VLIW pipelining made the debate over instruction set complexity meaningless, as you get custom sets based on which pipeline is used, due to long instruction chains. You could argue that at the core of each VLIW chip you have a RISC; but you could also argue that the result is really an extremely CISC. It's kind of like arguing about Toyota vs Ford, when in reality, they both have components made by Honda and Mazda, as well as each other these days.

So Errol Rasit's observation is valid. There was a migration -- I know, because my old 32 and 64-bit RISC code is a headache to port to x64, unless it is abstracted. The current registers however handle old CISC x86 code just fine.

The king is dead, long live the king

[dwheeler]

"Unix" - as they define it - is going away. But what's really happening is that old implementations of Unix are being replaced by modern implementations and re-implementations of Unix.

Servers are increasingly using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, etc. On the client side, the #1 smartphone (by popularity) is Android, based on Linux. The #2 smartphone is iOS, based on Unix. On the desktop, Macs are running MacOS, also based on Unix.

What's this?

[joh]

Neckbeard teasing? Or what?

Unix (in some incarnation) is running the world. It runs on servers, on embedded systems and basically all tablets and smartphones (both Android and iOS are Unix).

I cannot believe I'm wasting 30 seconds on this. Die, Slashdot, die.

System V

[Anonymous Coward]

My experience was on AT&T Unix System V. I used to jokingly refer to it as REAL UNIX with a hint of faux snobbery and a straight face.

While working on a Linux system, I was using some command line utility (doesn't matter) and the command kept wrapping. Ran it - errors. Retyped - errors. Retyped - finally worked.

Anyway, a skilled Linux user was watching me, typing away and then running my command - the syntax worked like it was a AT&T System V UNIX, BTW.

Said Linux dude said, try this - and he proceed to do the same thing with the same program but with like one or two flags and then the args.

It worked.

There have been quite a few time savers (I won't call them improvements) built into Linux.

I can't blame them - some of the most common things that we did in Sys V were overly verbose.

Anyway, wanted to share that - gotta go; there's a Matlock marathon and it's Pizza and Banana pudding night! Betsy has got the hots for me and she so young - 68! I'm gonna have a GOOD time tonight!

Hold on....

[LoRdTAW]

The Steady Decline of Commercial Unix - FTFY

Most of the the big Unix vendors have either switched to Linux or offer Linux as an alternative (eg IBM). Apples OSX since Leopard has received official "Open Brand UNIX 03" certification. iOS is not mentioned and most likely is not certified as the certification is unnecessary. But iOS is still based on OSX which is Unix certified and before certification, Unix like. Open Solaris was the only truly open source Unix but Oracle put a stop to that. Now OpenIndiana and illumos have replaced them and I don't believe they can carry the Unix brand.

Unix like operating systems such as GNU/Linux, and to a lesser extent, BSD have replaced commercial Unix operating systems. They both provide two of the most critical parts of Unix: POSIX and X windows. From there many programs originally written for a major commercial Unix vendor be it IBM's AIX or SGI's IRIX can quickly be ported to Linux or BSD with minimal effort. Just look at what Linux can run on:
* Embedded systems with tens of MHz and a few megs of ram to the worlds largest supercomputers with thousands of nodes.
* Just about every every high powered ARM embedded electronics hobby board runs Linux such as the Raspberry Pi, Beaglebone UDOO and others.
* Linux is also pushing into hard real time markets previously dominated by QNX, LynxOS and VxWorks. National Instruments now has an ARM version of their CompactRIO running real-time Linux. Previously they used an embedded Power CPU from Freescale running VxWorks.
* The Linux kernel is the foundation for Android which is dominating the smartphone and tablet market.

In Engineering - Unix is nearly done

[toast-]

In the Engineering CAD world, Unix has nearly run its course. All companies have dropped Unix support for the newest versions and only some maintain Linux/OSX versions for newer unix-like machines. Most are Windows only. Automotive companies, which are notoriously slow in technology adoption have mostly abandoned UNIX

Ford will retire their UNIX workstations (HPUX) for suppliers and customers in February 2014. These are largely HPUX 11.11i.
Unigraphics NX stopped UNIX support (HPUX, AIX, etc) as of NX 6 but opened support for Linux and OSX as of 8.
Dassault systems CATIA supported HPUX, AIX (6.1+) and Solaris on V5 - but as of V6 in 2011 they have ended UNIX support and are Windows only.
Pro Engineer quit most UNIX except Solaris until Pro Engineer / Creo 4.0 - at present they are Windows only.