The Unix to Red Hat cheat Sheet

Market Data and Trends

• While popular and entrenched in some data centers, proprietary UNIX implementations (AIX, HP-UX, Oracle Solaris) continue to lose market share.
•  IDC predicts that Linux will be one of only two operating systems left standing. (The other is Microsoft Windows.)
•  Red Hat commands a 62 percent and growing share of the paid Linux server market.

Proprietary UNIX Strengths

•  Robust. Seen as an enterprise-class operating system. Tends to have a rock-solid reputation for robustness, scalability and security, and a loyal customer base.
• Popular for core mission- and business-critical applications.
• Innovative. New virtualization, resource management, reliability, and cloud-focused features and advancements continue to be developed.
• Complete. Offers a rich set of tools for troubleshooting and management. Supports large files and file systems.
• Service. All major vendors (HP, IBM, Oracle) have a large and professional sales force.

Proprietary UNIX Weaknesses

• Proprietary UNIX platforms are expensive to acquire and maintain (SPARC, PARISC).
• Running applications on proprietary UNIX platforms leads to vendor lock-in. For example, AIX, HP-UX, and Oracle Solaris are all closed operating systems.
• Many UNIX vendors try to control customer technology purchases wherever they can do so. This can make customers uncomfortable.
• Only one major UNIX implementation is available for x86 systems (Oracle Solaris), but it has limited support. ISVs are more likely to port to Red Hat Enterprise Linux before porting to Oracle Solaris on x86

Where Red Hat Wins

• Broad industry support. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Tier 1 development platform for ISVs. New application features tend to be available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux first.
• Open platform. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has emerged as the operating system of choice to leverage the benefits of open, industry-standard architectures. Red Hat works with all of the major hardware and software vendors to foster optimal performance. Red Hat is vendor and platform agnostic, does not compete with x86 hardware vendors, and supports customers regardless of the systems or storage they purchase.
• Single platform: For physical, virtual, and cloud with seamless support for applications.
• Efficiency: Migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux results in high ratios of servers and users per administrator, minimized downtime, faster deployment of new server and applications, and efficient resource utilization. http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/235434_bank.pdf
• Subscription model. Subscriptions give customers immediate access to the latest software innovations and help keep systems up to date. Access to extensively tested security patches and rapid response to potential security issues reduces the risk of security breaches and lost business due to downtime.
• Integrated management. Red Hat Network Satellite and Smart Management enable systems to be provisioned, updated, configured, and monitored from one console with a single, cost-effective subscription.
• Reduced TCO and rapid ROI: The expense associated with UNIX systems (licensing and support costs, legacy maintenance) cause organizations to seek alternatives.
• Red Hat software, x86 servers, integrated management, and a pay-as-you-go subscription model reduce acquisition, upgrade, and maintenance costs.
• Performance: Red Hat Enterprise Linux performs extremely well on x86 hardware, and continues to set industry benchmarks.
• Familiarity: Similar features to UNIX make it easy to move.

Migrating to greener lands.......UNIX to Red Hat Linux

Being an open source enthusiast for several years now, the most often question I get asked from many business owners is why make the move??? There is certainly a plethora of information out there regarding Migrations from UNIX to Linux however I feel that CXXs need to get the crux of why this is a critical shift that needs to be made sooner than later. In this era, IT has tremendously modernized and there is a huge demand for Cloud like applications web 2.0 and off course, making that transition to the cloud. In saying this, I have have put together some keys points here that the business stakeholders should be aware of when thinking of Cloud, new projects, hardware refreshes, extension of maintenance contracts on their legacy systems.

Introduction

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux product family provides enterprise-class features that enable Linux-based solutions to be deployed across the widest range of Enterprise IT environments. With a potent combination of technical features, certified ISV applications, and portfolio of services, Red Hat Enterprise Linux products are the world’s leading Linux-based enterprise operating system solutions.

As enterprise customers have become frustrated with the price and performance of proprietary UNIX solutions, they have sought a way to take advantage of the multi­vendor, low ­cost , high ­performance environment provided by Intel® and AMD® commodity priced hardware. Historically, the lack of a stable, secure, scalable, and high performance operating environment relative to UNIX has kept many customers from being able to justify a move to commodity chipsets.  UNIX variants have been released for commodity platforms, but none of them have been able to provide adequate hardware support, software support, or scalability to make Intel or AMD an effective alternative to RISC­ based platforms. Now, as a product of the continual improvement of commodity platforms and the rapid development of the Linux operating system, there is finally a viable alternative to UNIX for running enterprise and mission­ critical applications.  Red Hat Linux is now the fastest growing operating system in the world, according to IDC, and it is most often replacing proprietary UNIX in enterprise IT infrastructure.

Application Availability

Independent software Vendors (ISV`s) have been quick to appreciate the benefits of Red hat Enterprise Linux Solutions. Providing support on these products offers numerous advantages:

·         The extended release cycle simplifies application delivery, sales and support

·         The extended release cycle means that applications from multiple vendors will all be supported on the same platform at the same time( a situation that rarely occurred with the traditional consumer products)

·         Technical features deliver performance and scaling to match or exceed proprietary Unix.

Since the initial availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux products, Red Hat has been working with a wide range of ISV`s to ensure that customers can choose from a rich application portfolio. Because all the products in the family are based on a common core, ISV application certification on one family member automatically accrues to other family members. The number of ISVs who are providing their applications on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux family is growing rapidly.

Refer to http://redhat.force.com/catalog/Product_Catalog for the latest list of ISV partners. Red Hats ISVs include:

Application Migration Challenges

In general, Linux strives to make migrations from proprietary Unix systems as easy as possible. It does this by providing similar tools and capabilities as those found Unix systems such as Sun Solaris, HP-UX and IBM AIX. An advantage of Linux is that most developer tools are included in the base system rather than in a separate layered product. As a result most Linux systems provide more software than proprietary UNIX systems.  Linux compilers and related tools have been designed as replacements for UNIX vendor tools and provide very similar capabilities, although usage options may be different. Perhaps the most important feature for application migration is that Red Hat Linux is POSIX compliant, greatly improving the portability of applications from proprietary UNIX.

Multi-threaded Applications

A feature of many UNIX applications is that they are multi-threaded. Red Hat Enterprise Linux fully supports multi-threading. The multi- threading sub-system is highly optimized for high performance, agility and flexibility for applications. In addition being that this subsystem is POSIX compliant,   heavily multi-threaded applications can now readily be ported from UNIX environments.

Java Applications

Java virtual machines and Just-in-Time compilers are available to Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the same way as proprietary systems. Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides Java implementations from BEA, IBM and Sun, as well as native open source Java compilers. The implementation that a specific deployment would use will vary based on the hardware architecture or application requirements. The “write once, run anywhere” capability of Java applications makes migrating Java applications from Proprietary Unix relatively easy. In many cases applications can be migrated with no additional development or modification – although a period of testing would be recommended for any application size.

Migration Strategy

Given that most open source developer tools (gcc, etc) can be used on proprietary UNIX systems, the first step is to port applications so that they successfully build using these tools running in the original UNIX environment. This allows development engineers to resolve problems related to the build environment without having to worry about other problems. Once the application works on the original UNIX platform, having been built using open source tools, it can then be moved to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Environment.  Development engineers are then able to focus on operating system and processor/architecture issues exclusively – because any tools issues have already been resolved. Experience has shown that this strategy generally results in a more predictable, faster, and low risk migration.

Conclusion 


While migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux from UNIX provides obvious initial cost advantages, enterprises need to look beyond software acquisition alone togain a complete understanding of their overall investment and potential for cost savings. Customers initiating a broad migration strategy that combines
technology maintenance, technical support, staff training, infrastructure management, and application porting can often realize even more value, and a greater, faster return on their overall IT investment.

Reference Documentation and Case Studies

http://www.redhat.com/solutions/migration/ux-to-linux/whitepapers.html

http://www.redhat.com/resourcelibrary/whitepapers/solaris-alternative-1

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/solution-briefs/risc-migration-migrating-from-unix-to-linux-in-six-steps-brief.pdf