The UNIX® platform has long provided leading support for the performance and scalability required for large-scale applications. Recent innovations for the x86 platform, however, have allowed organizations to enhance total cost of ownership and performance for their large-scale applications to levels that can be competitive with UNIX-based platforms. As adoption of the x86 platform for enterprise-class servers continues to expand—along with innovations in virtualization, such as the VMware® vSphere™ virtualization environment and enhancements for virtualization in the Intel® Nehalem architecture for processors—many organizations may consider the benefits of migrating from UNIX to the x86 platform. This discussion focuses on the complexities and considerations involved when planning a platform migration.

Cost-Saving Opportunities

There are three cost-saving areas that RISC migration can provide:

  • Capital costs: Costs for hardware can be significant, and costs for similarly configured and capable Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers can be significantly lower than RISC-based equivalents. In addition, costs for related storage and other hardware are typically reduced with industry-standard servers. Data center cost efficiencies can also be realized when aging RISC-based servers that can be less energy efficient than newer PowerEdge servers are replaced—often with fewer servers—to help avoid or reduce data center expansion costs.
  • Operating costs: Operating costs are an area where RISC migration can have the enhanced benefits. Costs to manage and maintain RISC-based servers can be extensive; system maintenance alone may be more costly than replacing the servers; software licensing can often be reduced on industry-standard servers; staffing for RISC server skills can add cost; and, as noted previously, RISC-based servers are usually less energy efficient and require higher data center costs than industry-standard servers. Reductions in all these areas may be possible with a migration from RISC servers to PowerEdge servers.
  • Opportunity costs: In addition to capital and operating costs, there are other costs to maintaining a RISC-server environment. Retaining a RISC environment in addition to an industry-standard environment adds complexity, particularly when multiple platforms, software versions, personnel skills, and policies must be maintained. Flexibility can be reduced with RISC-based servers from limits and/or lock-in on vendors, operating systems, applications, and services available for that platform. And technology advances often pass by RISC vendors, as the development cycles and R&D are not as robust as those with industry-standard systems. Migrating from RISC servers offers organizations the ability to help simplify IT, enhance flexibility, keep up with technology, and help deliver costs-effective approaches for organizations.

It's Easier Than It Seems

With all the benefits and potential for cost-efficiency, it's surprising that some organizations still haven't migrated from RISC-based systems. They believe the challenges of the migration outweigh future advantages. As thousands of Dell-supported organizations and many others have found, this approach is no longer valid. There are guides, best practices, and services to help organizations of all sizes and skill sets successfully migrate from RISC-based systems to Dell PowerEdge servers.

Technical Community - Background Reading


  • Unix Migration 10-13-09 UNIX to x86 Migration - The Dell TechCenter
    Develops a thorough analysis for migrating from a UNIX/RISC environment to standards-based Dell servers utilizing either a Microsoft® Windows® or Linux® OS.
  • Fast Track to Linux 10-13-09 UNIX to x86 Migration - The Dell TechCenter
    Provides an evaluation of the potential benefits of Linux within an organization's enterprise environment and implements a "pilot program" to evaluate and validate Linux performance and cost-effectiveness.

Novell/Intel Technical Whitepaper: Make the Move from UNIX* to Linux*: Now Is the Time

Resources:

Chat Transcript

Dell-JeffS Okay, well, looks like we may have a light crowd this week. Everyone must have already migrated to Linux. :) I'll kick things off then. Welcome to the Dell TechCenter Tuesday chat. This week's topic is UNIX-to-x86 migration
Dell-JeffS A few housekeeping items before we get started. First, this is an informal chat; feel free to jump in with your questions at any time. No need to take notes; the transcript will be posted on the site in a day or two. If a link is provided, right-click to open; otherwise, the interface may boot you out. If you do get booted, you can catch up by selecting Action, Recent Room History
Dell-ScottH <-- Watching Jeff copy and paste :-)
Dell-JeffS :) Ssshhh...let them think I type 150 wpm
darthzen Don't worry Jeff, I wasn't fooled
Dell-JeffS This week's guest experts are Carey Dietert (cdietert) from Dell and Rick Ashford (darthzen) from Novell. Darthzen, that's okay, I just made you a guest expert
darthzen Thanks. appreciate it
cdietert That's always a dangerous title, isn't it?
Dell-JeffS Okay, that's the official stuff. Now I assume everyone had a chance to read all the background material on the chat landing page
darthzen Very. I'll do my best to fail as subtly as possible
Dell-JeffS This topic is of particular interest to me, as up until June when I got here I use to architect RISC-based solutions
erson Why did you jump ship?
Dell-ScottH Since I don't know much about this topic, you will have to excuse my questions...
Dell-JeffS Well, Scott made a convincing argument to get me to come over here. (We worked together at that last place.)
Dell-ScottH Are all the applications available on RISC/UNIX available on Linux/x86? What are the main challenges?
Dell-JeffS Now we can talk poker and bbq all day long again
Dell-ScottH I know all the regular stuff is there...FTP, Samba shares, DNS, print...but what about "real" applications, for instance? Can I simply take an Oracle Database from RISC and bring it over to Linux x86?
peter_bailey Hello?
darthzen You can export an Oracle Database and import the data directly into an x86, yes
Dell-JeffS Peter Bailey is also one of our guest experts today
darthzen Generally speaking, most of the COTS applications are available
cdietert Depending on the version of Oracle Database, for instance, there may be some data conversion that needs to take place, but most mainstream applications have Linux versions, or can be ported
erson Scotth, had to cut my story short because of that 2,000 characters limit again. Although., that Austin Powers reference stole quite a large amount of them. But it was worth it.
erson What Linux distributions is Dell supporting?
peter_bailey Dell officially supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), and Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) if used with Oracle applications. Oracle supports those distributions as well
cdietert Specifically, those are for the enterprise space. For client, we add other distribution like Ubuntu
Dell-ScottH @erson, Lol, just read your “Will Work for Hardware” post :-) Will save my commentary for the end of the chat
cdietert But we're all just interested in enterprise, right? ::wink
darthzen :D
Dell-JeffS I think one of the more common questions might be what's involved in a migration from a RISC system to x86
Dell-ScottH Wondering how many people ask if x86 has enough horsepower to migrate? Does that come up often?
darthzen More people ask about reliability than horsepower. You can get the horsepower by scaling out
peter_bailey Yes, fairly often, however we have fairly strong proof points to address, as Darthzen mentions, reliability/robustness is #1 priority
peter_bailey In order of priority the issues that come up are: 1) reliability, availability, and robustness; 2) performance relative to the legacy RISC as well as current (for example, customer has V880 SPARC, wants to know how performance compares to old as well as current M4000/5000); 3) ISV application availability; 4) porting difficulty and methodology, including sizing; 5) security relative to Solaris/HP-UX/AIX; and 6) systems management
cdietert To the first question, the first step in any migration is to build a plan. A full-scale assessment of the server and application environment has to be mapped out before a wide-scale project is engaged
jwramseyjr My two cents: it's not all about CPU power, that's easy. System bus performance, especially disk performance and network performance, are important
Dell-ScottH Intel in particular has added many more RAS features in the chips; thought that might squash most of the reliability questions
Dell-GeneC Hey. Check on ya to keep ya honest
darthzen Looks like a pretty good list there, Peter.
cdietert Jwramseyjr, you're right; it's not just CPU, but depending on the application (like an OLTP environment), speed matters. The bus structure and memory architecture on the new 5500 series platforms addresses the issues
Dell-JeffS Speaking of reliability, comparisons between RISC/Linux on x86, I wrote this a few months back: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/dell_tech_center/archive/2009/07/15/at-what-point-does-cost-trump-2-4-more-minutes-of-yearly-uptime.aspx
erson Those running RISC/Solaris, why should they go to Linux instead of Solaris on x86?
Dell-ScottH Ah, was looking for good link
Dell-JeffS The survey I linked to found two minutes more downtime per year than AIX for a SLES system
cdietert And with a scale-out versus scale-up design, the ability to expand the connectivity to network and storage, and divide by workload, is unprecedented in x86 systems today
Dell-JeffS 15 minutes for the AIX box versus 17 for the SLES. The numbers are continually getting closer
cdietert Wider range of supported platforms, applications, ports—Solaris x86 still needs to be moved. There's more resources around Linux than Solaris x86
peter_bailey Decision to go to Linux (any distribution) versus Solaris is related to ISV and ecosystem support, that is, Linux has way more ISVs and 100–1000 times more contributors
cdietert The decision between Solaris x86 and Linux is really one of supportability, not to mention sheer market penetration—leading to more of an embrace from the community
peter_bailey However, Dell is fairly agnostic on OS for migration; we're happy to assist customers to move to Solaris x86 if that's more comfortable
erson Peter_bailey, but is it fair to put all the Linux ISVs and developers in one basket when distributions generally are going their own way?
peter_bailey Also, some customers see specific Solaris benefits, for example, ZFS or Dtrace capability, or some customers perceive Solaris as providing superior lower latency for some applications—for example, financial markets
jwramseyjr There are also some pluses to Linux over, at least, AIX systems. I was thoroughly frustrated when I realized that a USB external hard drive is pretty much useless on an AIX RISC platform
erson Sun hardware might be the biggest selling point for Solaris. Whoops, I said a bad word
darthzen :)
cdietert Well, the sun shines, and the sun sets...
Dell-ScottH :-)
erson And Brocade is bought by who?
cdietert Question is, Erson, are you talking SPARC or x86 architecture?
erson cdietert, x86; I think SPARC has lost most of its lives
cdietert Now, I heard that Larry said that there would be no Brocade bought by Oracle! ::blink
erson I was hoping Dell picked it up to strengthen their network offering. With the partnership that was announced recently and all
cdietert I concur on the SPARC side. There's not much more that they can do to keep up with the sheer market dynamics at play with Intel and AMD. Not enough R&D to make the power curve trend up
darthzen Not all Linux distributions are equal, but they are similar enough that you will get the cost savings from the hardware and maintenance
erson Would be sad if HP bought it and that partnership vanished
darthzen Of course, we at Novell think that SLES has a little more to offer ;)
erson Might be off topic, but could you use openSUSE or SLES today in Hyper-V R2?
peter_bailey I have only seen a couple of customers who still perceive compelling benefit from SPARC per se, especially once you lay out the current performance proof points. Minor exception is performance per watt for Java applications for the latest T2, but that's a pretty small corner case
Dell-ScottH So since I'm new to this topic, I'm going to ask the question that I think customers would ask: why do I go with or think of Dell when I'm doing a UNIX migration?
darthzen @erson, yep
cdietert Wow, where to start, Scotth! Most customers are looking for a more economical and extensible (read: choice) platform for their infrastructure. That implies, by default, an x86 architecture
erson Darthzen, good stuff; need to try that and get rid of those Gentoo Linux machines on our network
darthzen SUSE maintains a "perfect guest" strategy, and optimizes for all of the major hypervisors, including Hyper-V
peter_bailey In fact, I believe SLES is one of the only Linux distributions that has an Hyper-V "enlightened" guest, that is, higher performance guest
darthzen I love Gentoo Linux, but can understand your headaches in a live environment. Yes. The contribution Microsoft made to the Linux kernel this summer (to much hullabaloo) has improved Hyper-V drivers
Dell-ScottH @cdietert, I know on the hardware side it's a brain-dead, easy choice to go with our servers, but on the services side, is there a link you can point me to that explains what we bring to the table?
cdietert If that's the case, Dell is the only vendor that offers a "pure play," that is, we don't have a competing proprietary infrastructure to support
darthzen That came through Novell
peter_bailey The single strongest card is that we don't have a proprietary RISC legacy product line that generates huge revenue/margins, that is, to a certain extent Sun, HP, IBM can't push migration too hard
cdietert Sure. Go to www.dell.com/riscmigration for a broad discussion and several case studies and white papers
darthzen In what Dell can bring to the table, Novell is offering free UNIX-to-SLES assessments through Dell
Dell-ScottH Ah, that's what I'm always looking for, a link :-)
Dell-ScottH @darthzen, that I can understand, some real value there...link for more information on that program? Or I get information from a salesperson?
darthzen Get more information from me, for starters. :)
cdietert And here's another link for ProConsult Services: www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/services/adi/UNIX_to_linux?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz
darthzen www.novell.com/promo/100/solaris.html
darthzen Welcome back, Scott!
Dell-ScottH Just in time to see your link!
peter_bailey Nb, Microsoft "contribution" was involuntary: www.sdtimes.com/link/33641
darthzen "Microsoft's Sam Ramji, senior director of platform strategy at Microsoft, said that the company had preexisting plans to use GPL for the drivers, and he stated that the question of whether Microsoft had violated the GPL was a decision best left to the community." [“SFLC: Microsoft Violated the GPL,” by David Worthington, SD Times on the Web, July 27, 2009]
erson What is the most common RISC-to-x86-migration scenario these days?
cdietert Back to why Dell? The issue of just having x86 solutions is a big one. It simply means that all our R&D goes into proving and refining x86 platforms for this type of migration. By the way, Dell is one of the best references for making this move. We've eliminated greater than 120 Sun E-class SPARC systems from our environment and run all our Oracle Databases on Dell/Linux RAC-based systems
Dell-GeneC Okay, I'll play...what about Itanium?
peter_bailey The 80 percent case is Oracle migration, 10–15 percent ISV-packaged applications, greater than 5 percent custom written applications
cdietert The large Oracle percentage is due to the amount of research that we've put into it. Check out our tested and validated configurations at www.dell.com/oracle. We try to make it easy! And it comes from our own experience and engineering
peter_bailey Itanium is really a narrow market niche; only HP Superdome and I think a couple of Fujitsu systems use Itanium, since x86 performance has been superior for several years. They have a couple of RAS advantages but Nehalem-EX closes most of those gaps also
Dell-GeneC Good answer. I had not heard much about Itanium in a while. Thanks for the update
erson If they could just release the Nehalem-EX, looks like it won't happen until Q1
cdietert Whether Itanium, SPARC, or Power, there are questions about market longevity. Each proprietary architecture has a limited distribution, so fewer customers bear a huge R&D premium in purchasing and maintaining this technology
peter_bailey However, regarding RAS using clustering or Oracle RAC one can obtain same or superior reliability at a fraction of the cost of the proprietary Superdome platform
erson There is a new quad-core Itanium on the way that's using the same chipset as Nehalem-EX
erson Tukwila
peter_bailey Great point, Carey
cdietert Xeon, however, is sold by every vendor on the planet. The R&D dollars derived from those sales, as well as every other Intel processor (yes, even Itanium), are huge, with each customer bearing only a small part. Lower prices with wide distribution lead to more focus on the development of products that sustain the model, that is, Xeon
darthzen The same point could be made about the OS as well. Open source spreads the R&D cost out and makes life better for everyone
cdietert Absolutely! The promise of UNIX when it came out was to offer an open alternative to mainframe OS. But tell me the name of your UNIX, and I'll tell you where you bought it!
Dell-JeffS In case you missed it on the Chat page, there's a Dell Professional Services “Fast Track to Linux" document that captures the highlights in a couple of pages: www.dell.com/downloads/global/services/dps_fttolinux.pdf
Dell-ScottH Found the Intel Developer Forum session I was looking for...session on the Nehalem-EX has some details on the RAS features and the Machine Check Architecture (MCA): http://bit.ly/skekz
erson Scotth, that's totally wrong: www.dcrintra.state.va.us/dcr_forms/events/vieweventrss.cfm?id=5908&071520090613
erson Wolf Trap Rambler's Concert at Staunton River State Park
Dell-JeffS A document that @darthzen sent my way: Novell/Intel Technical white paper: “Make the Move from UNIX* to Linux*: Now Is the Time”: http://media.community.dell.com/en/dtc/attach/make_the_move_from_unix_to_linux_now_is_the_time_en.pdf
peter_bailey Perhaps they had a couple of Nehalem-EX slides showing in the background behind the band playing the concert... :)
erson http://blogs.intel.com/technology/nehalem-ex_steve_pawlowski_idf.pdf
Dell-JeffS Peter, Carey, Rick, since we have a little less than 10 minutes, any key points that haven't been asked or covered that you'd like to share?
erson Scotth, did you mean that one?
Dell-ScottH That gives me a 404 error
erson It did for me at first also
Dell-ScottH But yes, that is the presentation
erson But then I searched for it on Google, and it was one of the results; clicked it and the PDF loaded
peter_bailey I guess the overarching point is that the case for RISC migration is really about life-cycle TCO cost advantages not just from the x86 platform cost reduction
cdietert As you consider your migration, always keep the idea of driving costs out of the infrastructure as your foremost thought. First, more efficient systems; second, consolidation for greater efficiencies and flexibility; third, virtualize the application from the hardware. This gives the greatest flexibility and lowest costs going forward
Dell-ScottH @erson, my bit.ly link works for me
darthzen It failed for me too, Scott.
peter_bailey But also about reduction in complexity resulting from opportunity to standardize the server hardware, OS, and system management
erson Scotth, really odd
Dell-ScottH Yeah, just had Jeff try...on his chat window the letters are all lowercase
Dell-ScottH In mine the K and Kz are caps
erson All lowercase on mine too
darthzen I'll echo Peter and Carey, and add in that we (Novell) see quality of support as something that will ease the transition greatly
Dell-ScottH Here: https://intel.wingateweb.com/us09/scheduler/downloadfilecounting.do?sesfid=c4484e67890736d496fc440958810ba9&abb=368b7be965926b3adc06e87d004d8196&fn=703ceab00e0b16d33d6633abce6c8db8974edfe7768607dccbe61c8bed76e8d6
Dell-ScottH So much for short URLs :-)
erson Yes, worked when I changed the caps on K and Kz
darthzen That says the page is unavailable. :)
peter_bailey The business case for migration is compelling and the ROI period is typically fairly short. That why it makes sense to do it. Migrating now, with Dell, Novell, Red Hat, Intel help has strong business and technical benefits, that is, sooner = faster ROI
cdietert Gotta run, guys! I have to man the Dell podium at the Intel booth at 2:30 PDT, so I better get cracking! Happy trails!
darthzen Thanks for joining!
Dell-JeffS Thanks, Carey!
peter_bailey Also have to go
erson www.intel.com/idf. Click Technical Sessions. Click Technology Tracks. Click Special Sessions, and See sessions within this track. Click the PDF icon of Spcs002
Dell-JeffS Thanks Peter! It's about that time. Thanks everyone for joining
erson That went fast
Dell-JeffS @erson, hilarious “Will Work for Hardware” post. I didn't remember that quote from the movie, BTW
erson www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvaz8zzxoxo
erson It's when Dr. Evil and Scott go to counseling
Dell-JeffS I'm getting a video unavailable
erson The first part of his monolog is actually even better
Dell-JeffS Okay, customer just came in; have to drop too. I'll look for it. Take it easy!
erson Search for Dr. Evil Speech
erson Ha ha, "accuse chestnuts of being lazy"
erson How does he come up with such things...totally insane
erson Scotth, shouldn't the PowerEdge R510 be released by now?
Dell-ScottH Not sure on exact date
erson The new PowerEdge T110, PowerEdge T310, PowerEdge R210 and PowerEdge R510 servers are available starting in September at www.dell.com/poweredge with a starting price of $599
Dell-ScottH Love your intro speech on the masters program!
erson That's from the press release
Dell-ScottH Oh, now you are going to hold me to a press release? :-) Sent your shirt last week; not sure how long it sits in customs
erson Great. I'll update my Dell TechCenter pic when it arrives
Dell-ScottH Two people I could ping on the PowerEdge R510 are not on IM right now
erson You should obviously send a snarky message to the marketing people about how people have been asking about why the PowerEdge R510 hasn't been released yet. Is the very kool 2u(?) 16 blade server on the Dell Web site?
Dell-ScottH Yes, and point them to Their press release
erson The one with blades with Atom CPUs?
Dell-ScottH Talking about this? http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/05/say-what-dell-to-release-12-nano-in-a-2u-server-cluster.ars
erson Can you confirm that the hexacore Westmere-EP that will be released in Q2, 2010 will be a drop-in on current PowerEdge R710, PowerEdge M710? Maybe not that could upgrade current servers but that the servers will not change significantly for that CPU?
erson Yes, 12 blades it was
Dell-ScottH It will be similar to when we had the PowerEdge 2950; there was a PowerEdge 2950 II and PowerEdge 2950 III
erson Okay. Was there a PowerEdge R2950 I? I only remember seeing PowerEdge 2950 II and PowerEdge 2950 III
Dell-ScottH The “I” was implied :-)
erson Just wish that EqualLogic could drop Hit 3.3 for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 support. Have there been many applicants for Dell Masters yet? BTW, OpenManage releases... SUU and SMTD ISOs. Is there a place that lists what they support and what has changed without downloading the %%%% ISOs? Downloaded 6.1.2 today to install Windows Server 2008 R2 on a PowerEdge 2850, and it wasn't supported but the readme.txt for SBUU 1.9.1 on didn't even say what systems were supported. And the Dell FTPs only allow 200 Kbps. It takes forever to download the SMTD with that speed. I couldn't take it so I used Metaproducts Mass Downloader and pointed it to http://ftp.dell.com/secure/sysman/blabla.iso, and it started downloading it using eight threads, each capped at just above 200 Kbps. Problem sorted I guess. Any idea when OpenManage 6.2 is released with full Windows Server 2008 R2 support?
erson Woot! Hit 3.3 early production release...tell Jeffs
Dell-ScottH Sorry, had to leave the room. Hmmm, Mass downloader, interesting...wasn't aware. Let me look at release sheet for 6.2. There are 43 Masters identified...13 actually signed up and "enrolled"
erson I would like to see a table with all recent Dell servers with the last released SMTD/SUU that supported every particular server
Dell-ScottH Shows RTS for 6.2 of 12/15/2009
erson There really is only the SUU and SMTD DVDs these days, right?
Dell-ScottH Yes, have you tried out Repository Manager? Sounds like a wiki page you should make
erson I thought about that too today when being frustrated about downloading those ISOs :)
Dell-ScottH Yeah, lot of crap to download if you only have a few different server models
erson I wanted the SBUU to install that PowerEdge 2850 with Windows Server 2008 R2 today. First I very wrongly grabbed the latest 6.1.1 SUU and then I grabbed SMTD 6.1.2, 6.1.1, and finally 6.1.0—worked with PowerEdge 2850. Hmmm, now that I look at those SMTDs, the 6.1.2 and 6.1.1 are much smaller in size compared to 6.1.0
Dell-ScottH Yah, that frustrates me as well
erson So maybe you dropped support for a bunch of servers between 6.1.0 and 6.1.1? It's sheer bliss to switch to PowerEdge M710 and PowerEdge R710 and not have to deal with all those DVDs (wish they bought the DRAC when they purchased all the old Dell servers)
Dell-ScottH Probably, there is always the backwards way of looking at the support matrix: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/smsom/6.1/en/peosom/index.htm, but you have to do that for each release and then work it backwards
erson Yeah
Dell-ScottH Would be easier, like you say, listed by machine
erson And that's for 6.1...so it doesn't say anything about 6.1.2 and 6.1.1, I presume
Dell-ScottH Correct. And the main page only shows up to 6.1...looks like they are behind on documents: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/smsom/
erson I've actually doubled up on my total number of tweets today :)
Dell-ScottH Nice. Now just follow more people and install tweetdeck—you'll get hooked
erson My main problem is the numbers of characters; I even have trouble, as you know, with 2,000 chars on Dell TechCenter posts :)
Dell-ScottH Actually sent e-mail to Wetpaint today to see if I can get it increased...appears to be global (like most of their things)
Dell-ScottH I'm out. Good talking to you as always
erson Bye all, see you next Tuesday to talk about Windows Server 2008 R2, a follow-up to a previous chat earlier this summer