RE: Should there only be 1 OS, or multiple?

  • From: "Matthew Zito" <mzito@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <niall.litchfield@xxxxxxxxx>, <Richard.Goulet@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:30:43 -0500

As an ISV, I would definitely prefer to only support one operating
system when supporting Oracle, but the reality is that different
operating systems have different strengths and weaknesses.  And
competition breeds innovation.  Looking at it another way, if you didn't
have any other choice than Oracle, what would ever incentivize Oracle to
add new features/cut costs/offer a quality product?

 

The ongoing competition between major software vendors like IBM, Oracle,
Sun on multiple fronts has created benefits for the consumer (us) - we
get new features and functionality, the ability to force price
concessions, and even the ability to select different technologies based
on their strengths.

 

For example, windows as a server is great for small-to-medium
environments where they don't have dedicated technical teams.  IBM AIX
has great virtualization and resource allocation capabilities way beyond
what anyone other than (maybe) Solaris has to offer.  Solaris in my mind
is making a great showing as the third x86 OS in the server
environments, with Solaris x86 (I realize it's a lower-tier platform for
Oracle, I mean in the general sense).  HP-UX.....well, I'm not so sure
what that's really great at.  It runs on pa-risc, I guess.  Linux is
good overall, but I know a lot of UNIX purists who sniff at the
proliferation of distros and folks like Red Hat's willingness to
fundamentally change major administrative pieces of the OS across
releases (I can sympathize).

 

The most important thing is for an organization to try to minimize the
number of different OSes that they deploy internally, because that's a
nightmare.  

 

Thanks,

Matt

 

________________________________

From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Niall Litchfield
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 3:59 PM
To: Richard.Goulet@xxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: jhthomp@xxxxxxxxx; oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Should there only be 1 OS, or multiple?

 

I suspect even you would concede that this argument only applies to the
server environment - I disagree there as well as it happens - on the
desktop pretty much everything but windows is irrelevant, on mobile
devices there are only a couple of real players. I guess you could
summarize what I am saying by saying that in distinct markets there tend
to be distinct kings of the pile, and for good reason. 

 

As to the server environment, it seems to me that the choices most
people will be making over the next say 5 years will be between Linux
and Windows, since most people will be looking for application servers,
web servers and the like. Take for example
http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/enterprise-linux/the-server-ma
rket-share-battle-microsoft-gains-2/ which is a year or so old, but I'm
not sure I'd count someone with 2/3rd of the servers shipped as an
irrelevant side show. 

 



 

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 6:34 PM, Goulet, Richard
<Richard.Goulet@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

John,

 

    There is only one OS of any real consequence, Unix.  Sure there are
a pile of different flavors from HP, IBM, Linux, Sun, etc....., but at
the core their all the same.  Windows is one of those sideshows that
just doesn't seem to understand how irrelevant it is.

 

Dick Goulet 
Senior Oracle DBA 
PAREXEL International 
978.313.3426 
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Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
http://www.orawin.info

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