Posted on 12/03/2015 6:53:38 PM PST by dayglored
That's become the linchpin.
You mean I'm not supposed to run CentOS on my production machines? Uh-oh... :-)
I've been responsible for just about every aspect of Information Technology running large data centers, large application development projects, Enterprise intitiatives, etc.. etc.. etc..
Let me tell you what this will do:
1. So many large enterprises are running to Cloud based and Hybrid Cloud based computing as a way to save money. That's going to accelerate even more.
2. Converged and hyper-Converged systems which allow large enterprises to squeeze down their IT footprint onto faster hardware where "everything is local" and actually manage CPU consumption, driving higher utilization while maintaining application performance is the trend. This means FEWER CPU's for MORE APPLICATIONS and services.
Microsoft has seen this coming, that's why they're making the license changes to try and wring more revenue out of their customers who are finally figuring out how to do more compute with less compute power.
One last comment: I work for a very large international bank. Our Microsoft Server footprint has been SHRINKING year over year, our Linux (Red Hat Enterprise) has been GROWING. We used to have 8 Windows Servers for every 1 Linux Server.
It's now 1.5 Windows Servers for every 1 Linux Server. Our Microsoft Rep is of course, very nervous about this. In speaking to my counter-parts at other large international banks, we're not alone in this trend.
Its more than just technical support.
Its the security patches and updates.
The paranoid in me is muttering that it's a means of making the whole thing so messy that management finds the expense of working it all out with local staff is more than outsourcing to a large vendor. I could be wrong about that, but I wouldn't put it past them.
We run Cents in our (mid-size) colo. It’s fine.
Now we’re transitioning to AWS and using Amazon’s AMIs, which are RHEL/Cents binary compatible. It is *so much cheaper* than physical. We have a direct, fiber, 1gb link to AWS us-east datacenter. This move is sane.
I honestly don’t know why people pay for MS any more. Even SQL Server, previously my fave DB, has gone nuts. 2012 datacenter with the W8 interface? OK, time to change.
This is a big operation, and we’re going MS-free and pure cloud. It’s so *easy* on AWS now.
Ummm, the free CentOS releases -- which are the identical code as RedHat Enterprise, minus RH's branding -- get exactly the same security patches and updates as RedHat Enterprise -- that's the agreement by which CentOS exists.
What about the free release patches and updates is missing, other than the RH branding?
Yep. I've moved a bunch of my formerly-on-site Linux machines into AWS with very good results.
Most days I'm 50/50 on whether Microsoft is diabolically brilliant, or categorically insane. Either way, it's tough to figure them out.
As well he should be.
The only places where I'm using MS Server now are the big business applications that are written only for Windows Server and MS-SQL. Everything else is getting phased out over time and converted to Linux.
Yep, the only reason we still use our windows/VMware internal DC are for big .net apps. Which will be rebuilt but it takes time.
I see the future, and it’s not MS. Sad, really, but they have to take some of the blame.
I worked for a big corp, though not in IT. However I had access to the IT team and the servers. Their Linux boxes were Dell hardware running Redhat. My understanding was they did so because they could let Redhat take the heat if anything went terribly wrong.
I still don’t get it. Sounds like a serious “no confidence” vote by management. If they don’t think their IT department is competent, why not hire people who are?
I truly believe the boys at the top weren’t competent to hire good people.
Ha! If I tried to blame RedHat for a system outage, I’d fired. Actually, I’d probably be fired before I could blame RH. That’s the deal, and the trust I have in linux.
I would trust Linux or BSD. The problem comes in when management doesn’t know enough about IT to hire competent people. What I saw was pockets of competency.
In their telecom department, they had a very good older radio engineer to install telephones and pull wire. In a big corporation, it appears suck ups do very well so long as they can find a fall guy for their screw ups.
My (second hand) understanding is that Oracle licenses by the physical core at the hypervisor level, even if you provision less to the VM. This is why HDS touts their ability with UCP to provision dedicated cores to an LPAR (not sure if they use that term) so that the hypervisor only has as many cores as you need to provision.
And who needs that stress when you have Amazon RDS or Aurora. Oracle are kinda struggling too. Dynamic DB, scaling to fit use, on a pay-per-load basis? No, Oracle is now dinosaur.
Or, if you require columnar, redshift.
I was in a meeting with SAP and you could see the uncomfortable going against redshift. You pay, but only what you use.
Disclosure: I don’t work for amazon, I’m just some tech guy.
Microsoft seems to be doing everything it can to promote Linux these days... :-)
You obviously think that Linux is free for corporations, and I can tell you that you’re sorely mistaken. RHEL costs our company a pretty penny for licensing, and if you don’t license your copies of RHEL, you don’t get updates.
Ballmer hasn’t been with MS since 2014. He’s on the board, but he has no controlling stake in the business anymore.
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