I need to give a presentation on the benefits of AIX vs Solaris.
Can everyone share your thoughts. Keep in mind that I`m not looking
to dismiss either platform, I think they both work very well with
specific databases,
storage and apps. Thoughts please!

Thanks

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On 20 Jul 2006 08:44:21 -0700, racman <arubin@mfs.com> wrote:
> I need to give a presentation on the benefits of AIX vs Solaris.
> Can everyone share your thoughts. Keep in mind that I`m not looking
> to dismiss either platform, I think they both work very well with
> specific databases,
> storage and apps. Thoughts please!

Well, like any other "which OS should I use for this situation"
question, it really comes down to - what apps do you need to run, where
do they run best, and what hardware is available?

Solaris admins are easier to find, at least around here (midwest USA).
AIX has a great admin tool that lets sysadmins do some pretty
sophisticated stuff without needing to be intimately familiar with the
inner workings.  (not saying it's wise, just that it's possible).  The
answer of "it depends" is a weak one, but without some clarifying
details I think it's the best I can give.  And, harder to measure things
like staff comfort level are real but fuzzy.

Dave Hinz

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racman wrote:
>
> I need to give a presentation on the benefits of AIX vs Solaris.

Typical uptime is higher on AIX, number of apps available is
higher on Solaris.  I think these two have a direct inverse
correlation.

AIX was an early adopter of several important technologies -
logical volumes on the installation media, dynamic kernel
parameters and so on.  Solaris now has all of these but the
next cool technology is likely to have AIX as the early
adopter.

AIX LVM is simpler and therefore easier to script.  Solaris
has two LVMs but the Veritas one is more complex and
therefore able to do more stuff.

Hardwarewise IBM has spent more effort over the years on
their high end boxes and Sun on their low end boxes so
even though there's plenty of overlap in the product lines you
would likely want Suns for rackfulls of small clustered servers
and IBM for the big database boomers.

Do you know about Bruce's UNIX Rosetta stone?  It's a table
of specialized command equivalencies.  What it boils down to
is if you can do it on one UNIX-like box chances are you
can on the other types as well.  Which is going to be better
depends very much on the exact situation.

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Doug Freyburger wrote:
> Do you know about Bruce's UNIX Rosetta stone?  It's a table
> of specialized command equivalencies.  What it boils down to
> is if you can do it on one UNIX-like box chances are you
> can on the other types as well.  Which is going to be better
> depends very much on the exact situation.

It's been updated quite resently, hasn't it? Last time I looked, it
seemed a bit out of date, IIRC. I may easily be mistaken...

BTW, as part of the upcoming BSD certifications, they have a nice BSD
commands reference, outlining commands similarities/differences between
the four major BSD's:

http://www.bsdcertification.org/dow...-en.pd
f

--
Kind regards,
Mogens V.

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"Doug Freyburger" <dfreybur@yahoo.com> writes:

>AIX was an early adopter of several important technologies -
>logical volumes on the installation media, dynamic kernel
>parameters and so on.  Solaris now has all of these but the
>next cool technology is likely to have AIX as the early
>adopter.

Really? Which cool technology was adopted in AIX recently?

>AIX LVM is simpler and therefore easier to script.  Solaris
>has two LVMs but the Veritas one is more complex and
>therefore able to do more stuff.

You're forgetting about ZFS which is much easier than anything.

(It's LVM and filesystem rolled into one)

(One or two commands to create a "pool" and filesystem)


Casper
--
Expressed in this posting are my opinions.  They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.

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On 2006-07-22, base60 wrote:
> Casper H.S. Dik wrote: 
>
> Well, they choose to not use xml for their system .conf
> files etc., so that's more than one can say for Sun 

That's a good reason to stay away from it!

> Disclaimer: yes, I prefer AIX (almost anything) to Solaris 


--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author              <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
===== My code in this post, if any, assumes the POSIX locale
===== and is released under the GNU General Public Licence

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Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:
> On 2006-07-22, base60 wrote: 
>
>    That's a good reason to stay away from it!

The ironic part is that the Sun guys used to make fun of the oddities
of AIX 

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On 2006-07-22, base60 wrote:
> Chris F.A. Johnson wrote: 
>
> The ironic part is that the Sun guys used to make fun of the oddities
> of AIX 

Perhaps I should have been more specific:

That's a good reason to stay away from AIX!

--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author              <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
===== My code in this post, if any, assumes the POSIX locale
===== and is released under the GNU General Public Licence

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Casper H.S. Dik wrote:
> base60 <nobody@whitehouse.com> writes:
> 
> 
>
> Which flip/flops?
>
> ZFS was announced for S10 but it was made clear that it would
> not be in the initial release.  Then it was announced for update 2
> and lo and behold it is in update 2.

I'm simply repeating what I was told by Sun regarding ZFS... and
from what I've heard, others in this area were told the same.

Irregardless, it was just released and no-one with a real business
would fire it up for something they cared about until the dust
settled out.

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Casper H.S. Dik wrote:
> "Chris F.A. Johnson" <cfajohnson@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>
> The XML files are not for editing they merely describe how
> the system is configured.

And if you merely wish to change something or understand what
it is that Sun has done, you are now forced to do so in xml
rather than a shell.

Possibly it's just a personal bias, but I fail to see any
value-add on this.

The only real business Sun has is computers and they seem
to have figured out that Linux was making inroads at the
bottom and AIX at the top.

Sun's business is more or less stagnant and for that reason,
their stock is stalled at or under $5.00 -- much under at
the moment and dropping steadily.

Sol 10 was mostly about marketing and money.

Yes, ZFS is a VERY long overdue good thing... it's only
taken them, what, 16 years to after AIX and 8 - 10 after
HP-UX?

And then there was Openwin, which Sun would probably still
be based on if it wasn't for selling to the Feds.

If you're happy with Solaris and Sun, but all means, work
with them and stay with them...

However, judging from what is happening to their stock,
I'd say I have a fair amount of company in thinking that
Sol 10 was a mistake.

And, since this appears to be degrading the way these
threads usually do and I have no quarrel with you, I may
read your responses, but I won't reply.

Regards.

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