UNIX Special 4: Linux vs. UNIX

INDIA: Although many still consider UNIX the best option for high-demand applications, the technical differences between Linux and UNIX are "going to be pretty minimal" going forward, argued Gartner analyst George Weiss in a recent report.

Things going in favour of Linux were - better hardware features, internal multitasking and multiprocessing, less expensive resource requirements, stronger application independence and other such bullets.

Gabriel Consulting Group takes the same vein.

What it labels as a blinding glimpse of the obvious, GCG puts it forth in these words:

“The Linux operating system has had a huge impact on enterprise computing. It’s being used in closet-sized data centers and massive government research facilities alike — and most all of the IT shops in-between. Linux growth has come from new workloads, Microsoft Server replacements, and — of course — from the commercial UNIX installed base as well.”

No doubt, pressure from Linux-fueled systems has driven the major UNIX solutions toward the high end of the data center.  We no longer see racks of Sun, HP, or IBM RISC systems driving file, print, or application servers. In fact, Linux (and to a lesser extent Microsoft) operating systems have completely taken over those functions, along with many others. Systems based on commercial UNIX have moved to a much more mainframe-like role, hosting large applications.

But then has Linux matured to the point where it’s a substitute for commercial UNIX? Does Linux offer the mission critical characteristics that data center customers need for their most important workloads?

GCG tried to attack just these very questions in its survey. Dan Olds, principal analyst tells that it’s important to point out that there’s a place for both commercial UNIX and Linux in the modern data center and that these are both moving targets — so we’re taking a snapshot in time on these issues.

And with that as the silhouette, the survey find out that almost 60 per cent of respondents believe that commercial UNIX is a better choice than Linux for some workloads. It’s a majority, but not overwhelming. Why?

Well, it’s interesting to note that the ‘Not Sure’ responses outweigh both the ‘Disagree’ and ‘Strongly Disagree’ voters. This is a pattern; Dan says they saw on many of the UNIX vs. Linux questions.

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A hardcore minority of 20-30 per cent who see Linux as superior to UNIX in every way, and then a reasonably large number of undecided respondents.

For instance, a question asks, from a Linux perspective, if Linux is technically better than UNIX these days. A solid majority of customers (60 per cent) say Linux isn’t quite at the same technical level as commercial UNIX.

Of course, it can be argued that Linux can provide very high application availability when it’s used in a cluster or with applications that scale horizontally rather than vertically, Dan adds.

But that’s not the same thing as the single-system availability that has been the design point for modern commercial UNIX operating systems. Almost half (56 per cent) believed that commercial UNIX-based systems provide higher levels of availability and reliability than the typical Linux distribution.

“I think that the major operating systems will continue to survive, but the bulk of the growth will go towards Windows and Linux — which is natural, given that they are lower cost alternatives. I believe that commercial UNIX systems will continue to grow in terms of usage (bigger and more capable systems being shipped), albeit at a much slower rate.”

From how Dan Olds interprets this quite fairly, anyone who knows Linux would feel fairly comfortable with commercial UNIX these days. This is something that the UNIX vendors need to explore and discuss with prospective customers.

UNIX needs to continue to show how it’s a better platform for mission critical workloads — how it’s more highly available, provides more predictable performance, and is easier to manage vs. Linux.

So the ‘whether’ part in the question of UNIX or LINUX still is in a much larger font size, be it a survey, or a crucial decision looming over an enterprise CIO.

The ink continues to be in grey, rather than in Black or White.

Because, in the survey, there’s still that quarter of respondents who aren’t quite sure which is better, perhaps signifying the ‘moving target’ nature of the two operating environments.