Sadly my employer just announced that the 30 or so Sun machines we put
into the field each month will be replaced with Linux machines. The
developers have already started to port all our code over even. As it
turns out, a bunch of our large customers in Europe have voiced
concerns about Sun hardware not being stable enough and fast enough to
run the larger versions of our systems. This was reinforced by the
Linux Idealogues here inhouse, agreeing with everything the customers
had been fearful of.

As is evident in their final decision,, my voice went largely unheard
in all attempts to dispute any of it.

In article <1149798227.539801.237430@f6g2000cwb.googlegroups.c om>,
"keith" wrote:

> Sadly my employer just announced that the 30 or so Sun machines we put
> into the field each month will be replaced with Linux machines. The
> developers have already started to port all our code over even. As it
> turns out, a bunch of our large customers in Europe have voiced
> concerns about Sun hardware not being stable enough and fast enough to
> run the larger versions of our systems. This was reinforced by the
> Linux Idealogues here inhouse, agreeing with everything the customers
> had been fearful of.
>
> As is evident in their final decision,, my voice went largely unheard
> in all attempts to dispute any of it.

And this is a problem because...

[well, it would be a Bad Thing(tm) if they switched to Windows, but at
least you get to learn something new. Should be fun to see how they get
the application to run on systems with multi-Terabyte filesystems, but
hey if all it needs to run on is a cheapo PC, WTF.]

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

Michael Vilain wrote:
> And this is a problem because...
>


Bad news because I prefer Sun/Solaris to PC/Linux and I'm going to have
to work on all these boxes. Not to mention that the reasons they give
are wholly unsupportable. One more sales loss for Sun isn't a good
thing for the future of Sun either. Not that our 30 machines a month is
going to break their sales forecasts but it can't be of much help.

In article <1149801718.590554.193680@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups. com>,
"keith" wrote:

> Michael Vilain wrote:
> > And this is a problem because...
> >
>
>
> Bad news because I prefer Sun/Solaris to PC/Linux and I'm going to have
> to work on all these boxes. Not to mention that the reasons they give
> are wholly unsupportable. One more sales loss for Sun isn't a good
> thing for the future of Sun either. Not that our 30 machines a month is
> going to break their sales forecasts but it can't be of much help.

My last contract sent many of the Datacenter staff to Solaris 10 admin
training. They came back and reported all the different stuff compaired
to Solaris 2.6 and management started looking for other vendors. They
were very happy with their existing Solaris 2.6 systems on large E6500
machines but the MRP vendor stopped supporting SUN, so they were going
to have to find a new vendor. Might as well expand the scope to look at
newer hardware in the datacenter. They finally went to IBM e-Servers.

Well, "we'll see" about their application scaling to large PC-based
environments. Linux may not be the be-all and end-all of the *nix
world, but it will look good on your resume and maybe get you an
interview. However, if you still want to work on SUNs, you'll end up
limiting your employment options and have to travel to where they are
rather than "just work". "Life is nature's way of keeping meat fresh."
Your call.

I stopped putting VMS on my resume in the mid-90's. Uncle Ken retired
and it all went to hell in a handbasket. Maybe, with Scott gone, SUN is
going in that direction.

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

That's nuts. Call up Dell with a hardware problem and see
what the response is, if you ever get one. If you're lucky,
a couple of days after you contact Dell, you'll get an email
asking if you've checked the cables.

Michael Vilain wrote:
> Well, "we'll see" about their application scaling to large PC-based
> environments. Linux may not be the be-all and end-all of the *nix
> world, but it will look good on your resume and maybe get you an
> interview. However, if you still want to work on SUNs, you'll end up
> limiting your employment options and have to travel to where they are
> rather than "just work". "Life is nature's way of keeping meat fresh."
> Your call.
>
> I stopped putting VMS on my resume in the mid-90's. Uncle Ken retired
> and it all went to hell in a handbasket. Maybe, with Scott gone, SUN is
> going in that direction.
>
> --
> DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...


I've been in Linux since the mid 90's, it's not a matter of not knowing
how to admin a Linux system. I do know how that is why I prefer
Solaris. I just hate to see yet another OS move down the list of
bulleted items on my resume along with my Tru64, Irix, Plan9 and a
multitude of other things.
The loss of Solaris here would be easier to swallow if they were doing
it for reasons that were sound. However, I understand a company must
listen to its customers, even if they are totally off base. In my mind,
Sun is losing the PR war.

"keith" writes:
> Sadly my employer just announced that the 30 or so Sun machines we put
> into the field each month will be replaced with Linux machines. The
> developers have already started to port all our code over even. As it
> turns out, a bunch of our large customers in Europe have voiced
> concerns about Sun hardware not being stable enough and fast enough to
> run the larger versions of our systems. This was reinforced by the

Is your employer aware that Solaris runs on x86 systems as well? If
the concern is around the hardware, I'd expect that it'd be far less
expensive to avoid the porting job and change the hardware without
changing the OS.

--
James Carlson, KISS Network
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677

James Carlson wrote:

> Is your employer aware that Solaris runs on x86 systems as well? If
> the concern is around the hardware, I'd expect that it'd be far less
> expensive to avoid the porting job and change the hardware without
> changing the OS.
>
> --
> James Carlson, KISS Network
> Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084
> MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677


Like I had said, the change is being pushed by all the Linux folks
around here all jumping to backup the claims of the customers in Europe
that have voiced totally unfounded concerns.
Sadly there is no going back at this point.