[KLUG Advocacy] AIX's Funeral March

[Robert G. Brown]

Adam Williams <awilliam@whitemice.org> wrote:
>>The article mentioned "Most analysts agree that Linux is growing fast but
>>still hasn't matched the abilities of AIX or of other versions of Unix,
>>including Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX and Sun Microsystems' Solaris."   Where is
>>Linux falls short?  
>
>Features -  
>  AIX offers full ACL support - Linux does too, but only recently, and
>almost nothing supports them beyond Samba.
>  AIX has an audited and certified security subsystem - Linux... Hmmm.
>  AIX provides *VERY* robust LVM technology - Linux does too, again,
>only recently.  It is stable, but do I trust it as much as the
>implementation on AIX?  No way.
>  AIX supports LOTS of SCSI devices - Linux support of lots of devices
>is a pain, devices are numbered based upon discovery, rather than
>"learned" and remembered.  That is a kludge,  and one can screw oneself
>pretty easily.
>  AIX supports thousands, even hundreds of thousands of threads,  and
>the schedular doesn't go "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!" - Linux....
>  AIX supports SNA - Linux..... someone tried once.
>  ulimits on AIX actually do something - Not so much on Linux
>  AIX can motor through huge amounts of IP traffic, all zero copy -
>Linux does pretty well, but gets stuttery in extreme conditions.

Guess how Linux is going to get many of the above features? IBM (and perhaps
players who have an interest parellel to IBM, like large users) is going to
provide them! The above list was a lot longer 2 years ago, and it will be a
lot shorter in 18 months, perhaps empty in 36.

>As for apps. I think it is pretty tough to think of apps that haven't
>been ported: AcuCOBOL, visiFAX, SAP, etc...
That's right, this is an even more radical shift in the last 18-36, and was
again done by major players who saw the handwriting on the wall. Some of them
have been really impressed with how easy it was to port stuff, too.

>>The area that falls short for me to switch is the some
>>of the high end applications that we use just is not written for Linux but
>>that is not a short coming of the os just a short coming of the developers
>>realizing how to utilize Linux to there advantage.
>Right, but if they port forward to current version of AIX, porting to
>Linux from there is like falling of a log.

IMHO the main gap between Linux and the commercial UNIX systems is on 
high-count MP servers, which, while critical for a lot of enterpirse-
level apps, are not a high percentage of the deployed base. They do
reprsent a kind of sumiit, from which bragging rights to handling anything
is seen among corporate IT types as a Good Thing.


>>>Well, it is official.  What we've known for a long time.  Someday in the
>>>not terribly distant future yet another ugly child of true UNIX lineage will
>>>be lowered into its grave.
>>>http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2129537,00.html

I must say that this article high a very high equivocation content, which is 
typical in some ways, of a large organization starting on a long road of sorts.
The politics of all this are pretty clear; the AIX guys want to hold the old 
ship together as long as possible, while the Linux proponents want to point us 
in the direction of ultimate victory, without seeming to be disloyal to the 
corporate line, or what custumers can bear to absorb. The result is a lot of
rephrasing and verbal dancing around the realities of things....

...which seem to be that we are at the start of a Long March, which often 
begins in considerable trpidation, with great rewards, but also great risks.
Those of us who have been forecasting the start of the march can at least take 
heart that it has finally and publicly started. The above technical issues 
will br handled, just as face-saving ways to move the AIX proponents 
off-center will be found; time and technology will hanlde a lot of this.

							Regards,
							---> RGB <---