I’d like to solicit everyone’s opinion on a situation I am in here at work. We’re moving to a new ERP system and one of the key points is what operating system it will run on.
I share the computer room with 3 programmers (I’m the network admin) and we all feel pretty good about Unix, specifically IBM’s version, AIX. It’s served us well for years, has always been stable, and has not had one moment of down time (save power outages) in the 4 years I’ve been here. Our file, print, and email stuff runs on MS Server 2003 which has been great for the past year, no major issues.
Our main business is distribution. We receive our product from overseas and make sure it gets to our dealers here across the US.
All that said, we have a gentleman from the Gartner group here who is pushing all MS solutions…great plains and server 2003. Gartner has an excellent reputation and I trust what he is saying but I want to be inclusive.
I’m pretty ambivilent about which OS we choose. Running on unix means less work for me (I’m strictly a windows admin) but running in windows means I get to learn more and have more responsibility.
In your opinion what advantages does a unix based system have over MS?
Does anyone know of a good website with properly written studies that I can review so I have my facts straight at the next meeting? Any input is greatly appreciated, thanks!
Most of my experience has been with databases that can run on Unix or Windows server, Oracle and Teradata. My experiences leads me to prefer Unix by a wide margin for any enterprise system. I think Unix is more stable and secure than anything from Redmond and there are better tools available for those who have to maintain them. If you need remote access you can usually accomplish that with a text only telnet session. With Windows remote access I’ve often found myself in the situation where I couldn’t do anything without physical access to the console to disconnect hung sessions.
Does Great Plains only run under SQL Server? Being locked in like that, and by extension locked into Windows is bad strategy IMO.
Get a Mac. Runs BSD UNIX under the hood, so you can move your stuff to it easily, but lets you run Office and other GUI apps for administrative tasks as well.
Bongmaster: Right off the bat–I do a lot of Oracle on Solaris, so I’m biased toward Unix. I also hate consultants.
However, take a look at your situation. The majority of the people you work with prefer AIX, and it’s served you well in the past. Why rock the boat? Switching platforms is gonna mean new hardware, new software, new training, etc… Plus, it’s likely gonna be years before everyones experience level on the new platform is caught up to the old. It’s not like IBM is a sinking ship!
Consultants often have a vested interest in getting you to make radical changes: the longer the consultant sticks around, the more they get paid.
Unless there is a very concreate reason to switch to MS I wouldn’t do it.
Presently I deal with AIX and Win servers on a daily basis. I also have tons of experience on Solaris, HP-UX, BSDs, etc. I dial into properties to fix stuff. A reasonable amount of the time the answer with Windows sites is “reboot the server”. I think I have suggested rebooting an AIX machine once. Microsofts stuff has gotten more stable but it is no where near as good as it should be.
Windows is getting better but it is not, IMHO, stalbe enough yet. Also the security is lacking. Windows security has gotten better but I still sucks.
The company I work for actually has two ERP systems. Both Oracle 11i. One running on HP-UX and one running on Windows 2000. The Oracle system we have running on UNIX is rebooted weekly because it’s unstable. The system on Windows hasn’t been rebooted in months, and it’s never been rebooted for stability reasons, just for scheduled maintenance and patches. A security audit by an external company generated literally hundreds of alerts against the HP-UX boxes, and six alerts for the Windows box.
In my experience security and stability hinges more on the person or team maintaining the system then they do the OS. Someone that tells you to go with UNIX because it’s inherently more secure or because Windows needs to be rebooted every other day is probably not a very good Windows admin. And someone that tells you to go with Microsoft without giving you a concrete reason for doing so probably has some other motive, potentially fattening their own wallet.
I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. Narrow down your choices for the ERP software itself, then find out what operating systems are supported and recommended. As far as the OS is concerned, I’d put a preference on whichever system your team is most comfortable supporting.
Heh. What, exactly, do you mean by “don’t even have to pay for it”? Were you talking about the OS, the security of ther OS, or Oracle?
Oracle is not free. Don’t be fooled 'cause you can download it for free: if you actually use it for non R&D purposes you gotta have a license to be legal, and they ain’t cheap. Base price is $40k per CPU for EE, $5k per CPU for SE; although, in practice I suspect most heavy Oracle users get a site license and/or a steep discount.
Who’s going to pay thousands of dollars for Oracle and then run it on an open source operating system?
I don’t know about you, but if and when the OS running my company’s ERP system has a problem, I want to be able to actually yell at someone. You kind of lose that ability when you just download the operating system from the Internet or get it off the CD from a copy of Linux for Dummies.
You are missing some major developments in operating system business models Severian. Linux is used as an enterprise operating system for thousands of companies. Just because it is open source doesn’t mean that it has to be without support. Companies like Red Hat build their own distribution of Linux with all tested code and provide full-service technical support based on a contract. Even though there is still money involved, it tends to be cheaper than other operating systems and some people just really like Linux to run on the backend of enterprise applications.
People who have a site license for Oracle, and want R&D and non-critical systems with a price/performance ratio that makes Sun hardware look frickin’ pathetic?
At least, that’s where I’ve used Oracle on Linux systems before…
No, I knew this was an option. And it’s true enough, though the upfront cost of any operating system is often small change compared to the support contract. The point I was trying to make, and I admit I wasn’t very clear, is that enterprise-class anything isn’t really free.
FWIW, the joint I work at has sucessfully deployed an Oracle cluster on Linux for a system used by 1300 corporate clients with an average of 2.9 million records each. The only downtime was when the CTO fucked around with a SCSI cable for some reason.
Please no religious wars, but allow me suggest going to www.microsoft.com and searching for ERP platform. Obviously, not unbiased but you can find out information on Windows Server 2003, as well as third party evidence. You might be surprised at the cost advantage, especially when factoring in the total cost of ownership.
“Migrating UNIX ERP Installations to a Windows Server Environment: A Qualitative Assessment of Business Impact,” was authored by META Group, Inc. It provides a summary of independently conducted research findings to offer a qualitative view of expectations and experiences. Specific examples from individual respondents are included to highlight findings from a peer perspective, based on the type of organization surveyed. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/facts/analyses/metamigrate.mspx
Hey, Bongmaster, if you ask your IBM rep the same questions, you will more than likely get deep discounts on goods and services.
But, to your OP, it comes down to more than which platform can run an ERP service. Both of them can.
You also have to look at how, given your environment, you and your cohorts will:
maintain the environment by adding patches, configuration changes, application updates, etc… Who has better tools for updating the systems?
service the hardware. Which boxes are easier to add and remove hardware?
manage the environment. What tools exist that will allow you and your team members to get in there and take care of the boxes? What method do you use? With Windows, how robust is the command line interface for an ERP server sitting in a datacenter with no monitor? What hoops do you have to jump through to make it easily manageable.? For AIX, what useful features are GUI in WIndows but obfuscated command line in AIX?
secure the box.
recover the box. WHo has better tools for getting the box back when it dies? And it will die.
All these questions, and more, should be asked when making the decision. Remember to frame it in terms of your environment. Microsoft can, on paper, match up very well with AIX or Solaris. But you have to look at how much in the environment is going to have to change and for what benefit?
Thanks for all the replies guys, I will try and address each question:
Just out of curiosity, who are you talking to at Gartner?
Our contact is Bob Anderson, he was out yesterday
Does Great Plains only run under SQL Server? Being locked in like that, and by extension locked into Windows is bad strategy IMO.
I believe so, MS wants you to run Great Plains on Server 2003
Get a Mac. Runs BSD UNIX under the hood, so you can move your stuff to it easily, but lets you run Office and other GUI apps for administrative tasks as well.
Not likely though I did just order a brand new mac server for the art dept…pricey!
However, take a look at your situation. The majority of the people you work with prefer AIX, and it’s served you well in the past. Why rock the boat? Switching platforms is gonna mean new hardware, new software, new training, etc… Plus, it’s likely gonna be years before everyones experience level on the new platform is caught up to the old. It’s not like IBM is a sinking ship!
Very true and that is our main point of contention. Gartner says that almost every viable solution prefers to run on server 2003 and they generally don’t allow you to buy the source code. This is a big problem for a company that has always had the flexibility to customize code.
I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. Narrow down your choices for the ERP software itself, then find out what operating systems are supported and recommended. As far as the OS is concerned, I’d put a preference on whichever system your team is most comfortable supporting.
That was my line of thinking until Gartner came in and basically told us that most modern ERP systems that do what we need it to do prefer to run on server 2003. What a surprise that was! Of course you can shoehorn just about anything to run anywhere but when you break down the efficiency of doing that it is easier to go with what the product was designed to do.
All, thanks again for the very informative replies. I appreciate everyone’s opinion and I lean pretty much the same way as most here. What I really need is documentation, white papers, and references. I need to arm myself with facts and figures so I can make a case for something other than MS on the back end. There is a plethora of MS studies out their making the case for them, does anyone know a place I could find data which would make a good case for sticking with a Unix based system? Again, thanks for everyone’s very helpful input.
