Oracle Migration from Solaris to Linux Don Burleson

Proprietary UNIX servers depreciate rapidly and they are often next to worthless after just a few years.  Here is an example from eBay of proprietary UNIX servers that used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, just a few years ago:

Here is an actual listing from eBay of cheap Sun Servers.

“Sun's servers are being squeezed by the increasing power of so-called commodity chips from Intel Corp and low-cost operating systems like Linux that only a few years ago could not approach the performance of the company's Sparc microprocessors and Unix-based Solaris operating system.” – Business Times

Where are IT shops going?

?         Intel Hardware – “If you want the world’s faster processors then you will be forced to pay less” – Larry Ellison, CEO Oracle Corporation

?         Linux – Large-scale uptake, but hindered by non-open source costs (Red Hat) and lackluster support.

?         Windows – Increasing in popularity but suffering from a unreliable past.

Here are some press releases predicting future issues with Sun Microsystems. Several of these articles are clear that Intel threatens proprietary UNIX:

?         eWeek - “In a study conducted in April surveying 16,000 Unix systems users, Unisys found that 35 percent of businesses running Sun Microsystems Inc.'s SPARC/Solaris environments were interested in migrating to another platform”

?         PBS - “So here is the prognosis. Sun lost $2 billion last year and will probably lose another $2 billion this year. At that rate, the company has at most five years to live. They have just renewed a commitment to the Solaris operating system, which is no longer really viable from an economic standpoint.