Informix support for Linux - "enterprise" Linux distros only in the future

IBM seem to have changed their policy on what Linux distribution they will support (source: http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/informix/linux/). Roughly speaking it would seem that only RedHat and SuSE are now supported rather than the previous policy of matching kernel and glibc versions. This is OK for us but I am pleased we hadn't deployed our systems on Mandrake, for example. As part of this policy it states that "our future direction is to support enterprise versions only for major Informix releases." Now I have just checked and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server comes in at '599+VAT. OK, big deal but it effectively raises the outlay required for IDS per server by that amount. One of the ways our company can justify IDS over SQL Server 2000 (there are other reasons as well) is that we save money by not having to buy Windows 2000 Server. The whole budget can be spent on the DBMS. As we are experienced with Informix and rarely call technical support and when we do it is it's invariably a bug we could maybe continue to use SuSE Linux 9.0 if that was still possible. It does strike me as a slightly ill-thought move to effectively increase the price in this way. You might say an enterprise database requires an enterprise OS but to me these are only really labels. Anyone else care to comment? Ben.

"Ben Thompson" <ben@nomonitorsoftspam.com> wrote in message news:10cbqbhjtvm2aa1@corp.supernews.com... > IBM seem to have changed their policy on what Linux distribution they > will support (source: http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/informix/linux/). > > Roughly speaking it would seem that only RedHat and SuSE are now > supported rather than the previous policy of matching kernel and glibc > versions. This is OK for us but I am pleased we hadn't deployed our > systems on Mandrake, for example. An inevitable consequence of the involvement of the big players - not just IBM - in the Linux movement. IBM want to make money out of it, and one of the ways they will do this is by watching costs closely - hence a restricted number of distributions, and by forming the much-loved-by-big-corporates "strategic alliances", which are likely to exclude all but the mainstream. We can speculate as to the extent to which the involvement of IBM and other global companies - which after all has been instrumental in convincing analysts, media, and even some users that Linux is a serious proposition for business - will ruin the philanthropic essence of Linux and eventually make Linux indistinguishable from Microsoft. > > As part of this policy it states that "our future direction is to > support enterprise versions only for major Informix releases." Now I > have just checked and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server comes in at '599+VAT. ... although as a SuSE partner Ardenta will of course discount this :-) > OK, big deal but it effectively raises the outlay required for IDS per > server by that amount. One of the ways our company can justify IDS over > SQL Server 2000 (there are other reasons as well) is that we save money > by not having to buy Windows 2000 Server. The whole budget can be spent > on the DBMS. SuSE Enterprise Server is for more than two CPUs, so we're likely to be talking big companies. Most of the sales we've done of SuSE have been Standard Server which has an rrp of '313. Remember also that both RedHat and SuSE have free distributions too: you'd use Standard or Enterprise server because you want to have the support and maintenance offered therewith. Microsoft support comes on a pay-per-call basis unless you buy a pre-paid contract. So be sure you are comparing like with like. > As we are experienced with Informix and rarely call technical support > and when we do it is it's invariably a bug we could maybe continue to > use SuSE Linux 9.0 if that was still possible. Depends how static your environment is. Quite a few Informix sites we encounter are running legacy systems on Informix, and wish to move to Linux simply because they need to upgrade their tin. They too are unlikely to raise support calls, so SuSE Server v9 might suit. I run my wife's kitchen inventory system at home on it :-) But if I was doing serious development and had a fluid environment I'd move to Standard or Enterprise Server to get the support and the maintenance releases. The question is, how many Informix users are continuing with aggressive development plans on Informix? > It does strike me as a slightly ill-thought move to effectively increase > the price in this way. You might say an enterprise database requires an > enterprise OS but to me these are only really labels. More likely it reduces the amount of effort they have to spend in porting, testing and supporting multiple distributions, and in that sense is entirely understandable. -- Neil Truby t:01932 724027 Director m:07798 811708 Ardenta Limited e:neil.truby@ardenta.com

Sigh... You need to consider stability of your underlying platform. Also as a vendor you need to control your costs with respect to maintenance and support. Think about what you're be-itching about. ;-) SuSE, RedHat, Debian, Mandrake, etc ... All flavors of Unix. Then you have your different hardware platforms that run Linux. When you release software you need to do regression testing on each of them... THIS COSTS MONEY. So you have increased costs. TANATAAFL, you may see Linux as "free" but its not. Of course what's stopping you for buying ONE distro copy of SuSE and then using it on multiple boxes. Even at $549 plus VAT, its still cheaper to buy a distro than to actually download it from the net and build your own "freebie" version. Not to mention if you need support. Pretend that you're actually running a shop instead of being a techie. Sometimes that dollar you spend will actually save you money in the long run. But hey, what do I know? ;-) Neil Truby wrote: > "Ben Thompson" <ben@nomonitorsoftspam.com> wrote in message > news:10cbqbhjtvm2aa1@corp.supernews.com... > >>IBM seem to have changed their policy on what Linux distribution they >>will support (source: > > http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/informix/linux/). > >>Roughly speaking it would seem that only RedHat and SuSE are now >>supported rather than the previous policy of matching kernel and glibc >>versions. This is OK for us but I am pleased we hadn't deployed our >>systems on Mandrake, for example. > > > An inevitable consequence of the involvement of the big players - not just > IBM - in the Linux movement. IBM want to make money out of it, and one of > the ways they will do this is by watching costs closely - hence a restricted > number of distributions, and by forming the much-loved-by-big-corporates > "strategic alliances", which are likely to exclude all but the mainstream. > We can speculate as to the extent to which the involvement of IBM and other > global companies - which after all has been instrumental in convincing > analysts, media, and even some users that Linux is a serious proposition > for business - will ruin the philanthropic essence of Linux and eventually > make Linux indistinguishable from Microsoft. > > >>As part of this policy it states that "our future direction is to >>support enterprise versions only for major Informix releases." Now I >>have just checked and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server comes in at '599+VAT. > > > ... although as a SuSE partner Ardenta will of course discount this :-) > > >>OK, big deal but it effectively raises the outlay required for IDS per >>server by that amount. One of the ways our company can justify IDS over >>SQL Server 2000 (there are other reasons as well) is that we save money >>by not having to buy Windows 2000 Server. The whole budget can be spent >>on the DBMS. > > > SuSE Enterprise Server is for more than two CPUs, so we're likely to be > talking big companies. Most of the sales we've done of SuSE have been > Standard Server which has an rrp of '313. Remember also that both RedHat > and SuSE have free distributions too: you'd use Standard or Enterprise > server because you want to have the support and maintenance offered > therewith. Microsoft support comes on a pay-per-call basis unless you buy a > pre-paid contract. So be sure you are comparing like with like. > > >>As we are experienced with Informix and rarely call technical support >>and when we do it is it's invariably a bug we could maybe continue to >>use SuSE Linux 9.0 if that was still possible. > > > Depends how static your environment is. Quite a few Informix sites we > encounter are running legacy systems on Informix, and wish to move to Linux > simply because they need to upgrade their tin. They too are unlikely to > raise support calls, so SuSE Server v9 might suit. I run my wife's kitchen > inventory system at home on it :-) But if I was doing serious development > and had a fluid environment I'd move to Standard or Enterprise Server to get > the support and the maintenance releases. The question is, how many > Informix users are continuing with aggressive development plans on Informix? > > >>It does strike me as a slightly ill-thought move to effectively increase >>the price in this way. You might say an enterprise database requires an >>enterprise OS but to me these are only really labels. > > > More likely it reduces the amount of effort they have to spend in porting, > testing and supporting multiple distributions, and in that sense is entirely > understandable.

Ben Thompson <ben@nomonitorsoftspam.com> writes: > IBM seem to have changed their policy on what Linux distribution they > will support (source: > http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/informix/linux/). > > Roughly speaking it would seem that only RedHat and SuSE are now > supported rather than the previous policy of matching kernel and glibc > versions. This is OK for us but I am pleased we hadn't deployed our > systems on Mandrake, for example. > > As part of this policy it states that "our future direction is to > support enterprise versions only for major Informix releases." Now I > have just checked and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server comes in at > '599+VAT. OK, big deal but it effectively raises the outlay required > for IDS per server by that amount. One of the ways our company can > justify IDS over SQL Server 2000 (there are other reasons as well) is > that we save money by not having to buy Windows 2000 Server. The whole > budget can be spent on the DBMS. > > As we are experienced with Informix and rarely call technical support > and when we do it is it's invariably a bug we could maybe continue to > use SuSE Linux 9.0 if that was still possible. > > It does strike me as a slightly ill-thought move to effectively > increase the price in this way. You might say an enterprise database > requires an enterprise OS but to me these are only really labels. > > Anyone else care to comment? So use White Box Enterprise Linux. It's the exact same software as RHEL3AS, but it's gratis. Or spend $179 for RHEL3WS so you have access to Red Hat Network. -- Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA 93556-1412 Ronald Cole <ronald@forte-intl.com> Phone: (760) 499-9142 President, CEO Fax: (760) 499-9152 My GPG fingerprint: C3AF 4BE9 BEA6 F1C2 B084 4A88 8851 E6C8 69E3 B00B

In actual use, certainly you can buy one copy of SuSE SLES8 but you are going to only get an 8-cpu license in one iteration of a "license". So you'll have to buy more, whereas the 9.0 desktop is more of a traditional Linux, no limits on copies of installations or licensing or how many can be updated remotely using the online-update. Interesting too, how does SuSE control SLES8 to make sure you buy instead of just propagating the first purchase over n servers? Simple, they key the online update with a serial-number, so that when you run the online update, it looks for a serial number from a certificate included in the distribution. Certainly you can work around this by doing your own manual updates, but don't expect vendor support at this point. It has been our experience that SLES8 is a better product in a lot of ways compared to the desktop 9.0. SLES8 is a more professional experience, for lack of a better way to describe it. The downside to SLES8 is that it is at least a year old, and has a somewhat dated look to KDE, but everything has worked flawlessly with the way it installs in a server farm, and SuSE adds a few features like vncserver, ( http://www.realvnc.com ) so that you can install to rack-mount servers from the comfort of your chair outside the computer room instead of having to plug a monitor and keyboard into the back of a rack and sit on the floor in the computer room. SLES is a very solid product. On the flip side there are some other Linux distros you should keep your eye on, and get your Linux people involved in to better their skills. Stop by the LFS project ( www.linuxfromscratch.org ) and roll-your-own, or check out Gentoo. LFS is better than Gentoo in that it has documentation designed to teach. A really great way to get a generic version of Linux without the mystery--most vendors want to keep you in the dark--and getyour crew Linux savvy. The next step is in getting your boot cd's working, stop by Knoppix, Syslinux, or even the crazy rasta Dyne:Bolic and learn how to get your own bootable cd working. Knoppix seems to be taking the lead on the loop file system, something every Linux geek should know about. "nobody" <nobody@devnull.org> wrote in message news:40C62A58.9000802@devnull.org... > Sigh... > > You need to consider stability of your underlying platform. Also as a > vendor you need to control your costs with respect to maintenance and > support. > > Think about what you're be-itching about. ;-) > > SuSE, RedHat, Debian, Mandrake, etc ... All flavors of Unix. Then you > have your different hardware platforms that run Linux. When you release > software you need to do regression testing on each of them... THIS COSTS > MONEY. > > So you have increased costs. > > TANATAAFL, you may see Linux as "free" but its not. > Of course what's stopping you for buying ONE distro copy of SuSE and > then using it on multiple boxes. > > Even at $549 plus VAT, its still cheaper to buy a distro than to > actually download it from the net and build your own "freebie" version. > Not to mention if you need support. > > Pretend that you're actually running a shop instead of being a techie. > Sometimes that dollar you spend will actually save you money in the long > run. > > But hey, what do I know? ;-) > > > Neil Truby wrote: > > "Ben Thompson" <ben@nomonitorsoftspam.com> wrote in message > > news:10cbqbhjtvm2aa1@corp.supernews.com... > > > >>IBM seem to have changed their policy on what Linux distribution they > >>will support (source: > > > > http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/informix/linux/). > > > >>Roughly speaking it would seem that only RedHat and SuSE are now > >>supported rather than the previous policy of matching kernel and glibc > >>versions. This is OK for us but I am pleased we hadn't deployed our > >>systems on Mandrake, for example. > > > > > > An inevitable consequence of the involvement of the big players - not just > > IBM - in the Linux movement. IBM want to make money out of it, and one of > > the ways they will do this is by watching costs closely - hence a restricted > > number of distributions, and by forming the much-loved-by-big-corporates > > "strategic alliances", which are likely to exclude all but the mainstream. > > We can speculate as to the extent to which the involvement of IBM and other > > global companies - which after all has been instrumental in convincing > > analysts, media, and even some users that Linux is a serious proposition > > for business - will ruin the philanthropic essence of Linux and eventually > > make Linux indistinguishable from Microsoft. > > > > > >>As part of this policy it states that "our future direction is to > >>support enterprise versions only for major Informix releases." Now I > >>have just checked and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server comes in at '599+VAT. > > > > > > ... although as a SuSE partner Ardenta will of course discount this :-) > > > > > >>OK, big deal but it effectively raises the outlay required for IDS per > >>server by that amount. One of the ways our company can justify IDS over > >>SQL Server 2000 (there are other reasons as well) is that we save money > >>by not having to buy Windows 2000 Server. The whole budget can be spent > >>on the DBMS. > > > > > > SuSE Enterprise Server is for more than two CPUs, so we're likely to be > > talking big companies. Most of the sales we've done of SuSE have been > > Standard Server which has an rrp of '313. Remember also that both RedHat > > and SuSE have free distributions too: you'd use Standard or Enterprise > > server because you want to have the support and maintenance offered > > therewith. Microsoft support comes on a pay-per-call basis unless you buy a > > pre-paid contract. So be sure you are comparing like with like. > > > > > >>As we are experienced with Informix and rarely call technical support > >>and when we do it is it's invariably a bug we could maybe continue to > >>use SuSE Linux 9.0 if that was still possible. > > > > > > Depends how static your environment is. Quite a few Informix sites we > > encounter are running legacy systems on Informix, and wish to move to Linux > > simply because they need to upgrade their tin. They too are unlikely to > > raise support calls, so SuSE Server v9 might suit. I run my wife's kitchen > > inventory system at home on it :-) But if I was doing serious development > > and had a fluid environment I'd move to Standard or Enterprise Server to get > > the support and the maintenance releases. The question is, how many > > Informix users are continuing with aggressive development plans on Informix? > > > > > >>It does strike me as a slightly ill-thought move to effectively increase > >>the price in this way. You might say an enterprise database requires an > >>enterprise OS but to me these are only really labels. > > > > > > More likely it reduces the amount of effort they have to spend in porting, > > testing and supporting multiple distributions, and in that sense is entirely > > understandable. >

"Data Goob" <datagoob@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:6eYxc.8135$127.5769@fe41.usenetserver.com... > On the flip side there are some other Linux distros you should keep > your eye on... The next step > is in getting your boot cd's working, stop by Knoppix, Syslinux, or even > the crazy rasta Dyne:Bolic and learn how to get your own bootable cd > working. Knoppix seems to be taking the lead on the loop file system, > something every Linux geek should know about. Do you get out much?

Yes. ( I'd get into more detail but that would be, well, pedantic ;0) "Captain Pedantic" <theharlequin36@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:2ir2quFog14qU1@uni-berlin.de... > "Data Goob" <datagoob@hotmail.com> wrote in message > news:6eYxc.8135$127.5769@fe41.usenetserver.com... > > > On the flip side there are some other Linux distros you should keep > > your eye on... The next step > > is in getting your boot cd's working, stop by Knoppix, Syslinux, or even > > the crazy rasta Dyne:Bolic and learn how to get your own bootable cd > > working. Knoppix seems to be taking the lead on the loop file system, > > something every Linux geek should know about. > > Do you get out much? > >