[OpenIndiana-discuss] I figured this deserved a separate thread

[Tom Kranz]

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Gary Driggs wrote:
> I'd be curious to learn how many admins feel this is an important
feature since my server OS upgrade cycles tend to coincide with hardware
upgrades & in that case it's more work to try to preserve an exact
replica of the old system it's replacing  -- except, perhaps, in the
case of a physical to virtual conversion.
It's hugely important in production server environments. SPARC kit in
particular has a lot longer 'in service' life than x86 - 5 years is
about average, longer for the higher end kit. Case in point - I am
currently in the middle of de-commissioning an E10k. It's been live
since they first came out, it's been running mission critical stuff,
and Solaris has been upgraded multiple times. Being able to do that
massively lowers the TCO of the installation, which is a big chunk of
why SPARC (or any RISC solutio) can be cheaper to deploy than x86
despite the initially higher up-front costs.

> Again, workstations or lab/dev/QA systems are another matter depending
on their level of importance (e.g. my production workstation lately lags
behind by a year or two but my notebook gets a quarterly facelift at a
minimum).
'workstation' means different things to different people. CAD or
graphics workstations which - like servers - represent a higher
initial investment. Or dev boxes which must remain in step with the
servers where their solution is deployed. All of these have a lot
longer service life and again need to be able to smoothly upgrade to
newer OS versions. If the upgrade process is the same as on the server
than that lowers the cost of the entire process, and boosts the TCO
argument for the entire deployment.

Solaris has won several large deployments I've been involved in
(covering both desktop and servers) because of this. It's pretty key.

Cheers,
TOM


- --
Tom Kranz
Email: tom at gaeltd.com    Skype: siliconbunny
Mobile: 07779 149281    Phone/fax: 01344 773240
http://www.gaeltd.com        http://www.linkedin.com/in/tomkranz
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