Sun Chief Calls Out IBM, Demands Compatibility 419
downbad writes "Sun's President, Jonathan Schwartz, yesterday published an Open Letter to the CEO of IBM, Sam Palmisano, in which he alluded to "behavior reminiscent of an IBM history many CIOs would like to forget" - a reference to Sun's frustration that IBM isn't supporting Solaris 10 with WebSphere, DB2, Tivoli, Rational and MQSeries products. In his "Dear Sam" letter - circulated via his blog - Schwartz refers first to the "long history of partnering" between Sun and IBM, and claims Sun customers have made repeated calls to IBM about having the choice to run IBM products on Solaris 10." *cough* Kettle, meet Pot.
Re:Well then let's see DTrace, ZFS, etc. on Linux (Score:4, Informative)
According to the ZFS Q&A on http://www.sun.com/emrkt/campaign_docs/icee_0703/
Other sun stuff like Java, Star/Openoffice, Netbeans/SunOne Studio, iPlanet etc... are available for a multitude of other OS's.
Re:Well then let's see DTrace, ZFS, etc. on Linux (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The most secure OS? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Stating the obvious... (Score:3, Informative)
What, like IBM's OS/2 did with Windows 3.1? Or how IBM's z/OS (a mainframe OS) integrated AIX into its Unix System Services environment? In both cases, we're talking about system-level interaction, not merely emulation.
Re:IBM.... (Score:3, Informative)
You are correct, however, that they made several bad business decisions... like considering the PC a "passing fad."
Re:no recoding (Score:2, Informative)
You have to recompile the source for x86. Once it's compiled, as long as you're running "x86", then you should never need to recompile your code.
The binary compatibility is the sparc advantage. I can take a piece of software written for Solaris 2.6 and run it today on Solaris 9 or 10 (I do this actually). That sparc compatiblity is why some people really do still buy Sun SPARC servers.
As far as other items people have mentioned.
Yes, Sparc is slower that x86 in a lot of things, but it still scales upward to 128 CPUs which is a "little" more than x86 does.
SPARC is very good, but it's not for everything, and it's expensive.
If you need LOTS of horsepower on one box, and you need lots of multiple threads, then SPARC beats the pants off of most other architectures (maybe not Power5), but definitely x86 in that arena.
x86 scales "out" with multiple servers in an HPC. While SPARC scales "up" with multiple CPUs in a server... That's the biggest difference.
Not Supported Doesn' Mean Won't Run (Score:5, Informative)
That is why they pick a flavor (or two) of Linux as supported instead of saying "we support Linux". Other distros will probably work, but they only have so much time to validate & test. For a long time WebSphere (at least on z/Series hardware) was only supported on a 2.2 kernel. It ran fine on 2.4, but it wasn't officially supported.
That being said, if you do have a problem and you have a support contract IBM will work with you to solve the issue, but they don't like to make gurantees about unsupported hardware / software interacting with their stuff.
Re: Linux binaries - only x86 (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.sun.com/software/linux/compatibility/l
Re:Stating the obvious... (Score:3, Informative)
If you RTFA you'll see it already IS binary compatible. The problem is that IBM does not want to LIST it as compatible in their software support matrices so people don't sell it on Solaris and customers don't buy it on Solaris.
As virtually no effort is needed for AMD64/x86-Solaris certification of IBM's AMD64/x86/Linux apps, it is obvious that IBM does not want customers to consider Solaris on AMD64 (or x86).
IBM positions PowerPC as competitor to AMD64 , Sparc and Itanium, and Solaris on AMD64, as much as I don't like it, is going to make IBM's days pretty miserable. Therefore, making Sun incompatible is a short-sighted delay strategy and only confirms what Schwartz has been saying all this time - IBM actually uses Linux to lock up customers. If they cared they'd certified Solaris.
Well, one day they'll have to certify it and start competing on level field.
Re:Dear Sun: Follow your own damn advice! (Score:4, Informative)
ZFS is a core feature of the Solaris 10 kernel. This isn't
And since when has UFS been common across UNIX, BSD, and Linux...never! So why are you complaining, now?!?
Re:dangers of proprietary software (Score:5, Informative)
> into the stone ages. No matter how you cut it, DB2 (and some of the other commercial RDBMSs) are simply
> light years ahead of open source software.
Yeah, there are still many reasons to choose a commercial dbms. Like:
1. db2 just set the world record for transaction speed - at about 50,000 transactions a second. Last I heard mysql was trumpeting 800 transactions a second with innodb. Not sure about postgresql.
2. with partitioning, parallelism, and clustering, you can get subsecond response time from db2 *adhoc* queries against tables containing over a terrabyte of data. Postgresql, Mysql, and Firebird aren't even in the ballpark here. Note: mysql "speed" will end up requiring you to index every single column, which will kill your insert speed, double the size of the data, and their optimizer won't use the indexes anyway whenever you want to access more than 5% of the data.
3. Mature, proven high-availability solutions.
4. Mature, proven replication solutions.
5. Cost. Really - cost is a reason (sometimes) to use commercial software. Here's how this works: lets say you've got a critical business problem in which 1 minute of downtime = a loss of $10,000 dollars in revenue. Add to this a development team of 20 people ($1,000,000/year). Add hardware costs ($500,000). Now, that commercial database license may run you $50,000 (vs $500+ mysql, free for postgresql). But $50k is nothing compared to the costs at risk:
- online changes to db2 vs recycling mysql & postgresql
- robust ha on db2 vs replication for mysql
- standard sql functionality & productivity on db2 vs mysql
- less hardware for db2 than msyql/postgresql to get same performance
- etc, etc, etc
So, on a big project where the database is critical - you will actually *save* money going with a commercial database. Well, on large & critical applications anyway.
6. Consistency: since most organizations will require a commercial database for their most demanding applications - and they can benefit from a complexity reduction by using the same database on all applications. This way they've got just one set of skills to get all dbas on, they can get by with a smaller dba team (read: less labor = less cost), when a new version, patches, etc - they can get up to speed with it much faster, etc.
Not to say that the open source solutions aren't great: they are, and can pick up much of the database work these days. But there's still a huge case to be made for commercial products - and will be for a while, since the functionality missing in mysql & postgresql needed to compete at the top-end will be very difficult to implement.
Re:Stating the obvious... (Score:3, Informative)
Linux already has dynamic trace -- from IBM (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Stating the obvious... (Score:4, Informative)
You've been given the wrong information. The admin tool in question is SMIT (Systems Management Interface Tool? I don't remember for sure, but that's probably close) which presents a menu heirarchy & (eventually) just calls the appropriate CLI command to do the work. The vast majority of the config files are text, just like any "normal" Unix. Anything that isn't text probably wasn't in "normal" Unix anyway (although I'm sure someone will have a conter-example to prove me wrong -- go ahead).
AIX does have the Object Data Manager (ODM) where a lot of config info is also stored. Many of the commands update both the text & ODM data; a lot of what the ODM contains is device & driver information, which is part of what allows so much in AIX to be updated dynamically.
Back in the day (*early* versions of AIX) some things came from the ODM instead of the text files; this caused Bad Things to happen when someone familiar with another Unix changed
AIX does have a number of commands that update config information, but their use is not always required. There are also some annoying differences, like
One of the nice things about SMIT is that you can see the actual command line incantation do do whatever it was you asked SMIT to do via the menus & filling out fields. This allows one to actually learn the command line, and save time later.
Please note that I haven't been working with AIX for a couple of years now (all Linux) so some of my info may be old. If IBM has changed AIX 5.3 back to some of the old behavior I don't know -- I stopped with 5.2. But the history should be right.
AIX is so different to administer, I'm shocked you include it as "Linux-like". (Note, I've never used AIX....
This isn't meant to be a flame, but I've gotta ask: if you've never used AIX, how would you know? The "Linux compatibility" that IBM's been putting into AIX since late 4.3 & early 5.x versions has been inclusion of GNU toolsets (so you can -- for example -- use the "Linux" version of make if you wish, or the AIX version) and addition of library routines that make it easier to compile common OS SW on AIX.
I always find it amusing that some of the things IBM originally put into AIX to "industrialize" it were things that folks complained Aren't The Unix Way, but they've ended up in other Unices as the years go on. LVM, enhanced security, dynamic kernel, a systems management interface, etc. Yet, 15+ years later, I still hear complaints about how different & not-nomral-Unix AIX is. Whatever.
Re:kettle, pot? (Score:3, Informative)
What Top Secret Spooky Types Run (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well then let's see DTrace, ZFS, etc. on Linux (Score:3, Informative)
StarOffice's original creators, StarDivision (whom Sun bought in 1999) had been giving us StarOffice prior to Sun's purchase. And it had been on Linux since at least 1996.
I must say, though, that I applaud Sun for maintaining the status quo by continuing to offer a free version of the program. It takes an innovative industry-leading company to keep things the way they are.
(Not to say that Sun hasn't given us great things... I'm eternally indebted to Bill Joy for vi for example. But StarOffice/OpenOffice may not be the best example.
Re:Well then let's see DTrace, ZFS, etc. on Linux (Score:5, Informative)
SUN CEO Scott McNealy on the Microsoft-Sun deal:
unprecedented work is being done to make all of Microsoft and Sun's software compatible. "Unfortunately, (our stuff) won't interoperate with IBM very well," he joked. [theregister.co.uk]
Yep, Sun CEO delcares a conspiracy with Microsoft to lock out IBM and then Sun turns around and accuses IBM of playing dirty on compatibility.
I tried submitting that link to Slashdot at the time. Oh well. I suggest reading the whole thing. I love how it practically says Microsoft wants Sun around as a pet competitor due to monopoly issues.
You'd think the people at Sun would have the brains to notice that being Microsoft's pet lapdog is an historically more dangerous and fatal position than being targeted for extermination as a Microsoft competitor.
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Virtually no effort?! (Score:3, Informative)
As virtually no effort is needed for AMD64/x86-Solaris certification of IBM's AMD64/x86/Linux apps, it is obvious that IBM does not want customers to consider Solaris on AMD64 (or x86).
Virtually no effort?! Even Java products require significant testing effort when shipping them for a "new" platform and simply assuming that everything that works on Linux x86_64 will work seemlessly on Solaris x86_64 is a recipe for unhappy customers. As I work day-to-day on the DB2 UDB internals and I am just down the corridor from the DB2 linux support team, I can say with some authority that it would take a lot more than just adding a tick to the Solaris supported column on the marketing sheets to see DB2 on x86_64/Solaris.
I do not know of any plans to release DB2 on Solaris/x86_64 but I also am not aware of any plans NOT to release DB2 on Solaris/x86_64. Ultimately, it will come down the normal equation of testing and support effort required to get the release out and running against the customer demand. IBM is in the IT market to make money. If customers want DB2 on Solaris/x86_64 in sufficient numbers to make it financially viable, you can bet that there will be a release. There is no business proposition in sitting on your hands to spite Sun if there is financial reward to be had. This isn't a charity, nor is a playground spat.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Re:The real deal (Score:3, Informative)
Neither java's new license or their old license qualify as Open Source under the OSI definition [opensource.org].
The license Sun is now using for Solaris does qualify under the OSI definition, and this has also been verified by the OSI.
Despite previous ramblings from Mr Schwartz claiming that Java is open source, it's pretty obvious from their different licenses that Sun knows what 'open source' really means.
So why don't you?
Re:Please, enough with the Java crap (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Linux already has dynamic trace -- from IBM (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Typical lies... (Score:3, Informative)
ACLs have nothing to do with Mandatory Access Contro (MAC).
ACLs let you implement DAC (Discretionary Access Control) and are necessary for a C2 security level.
MAC is necessary for B1 or better security levels, which is higher that C1 or C2 and is required for many military applications.
With SELinux, Linux gets MAC.
TrustedSolaris has MAC.
OpenBSD has MAC (IIRC not by default, I think you have to recompile the kernel).
The article you point to says Solaris (or OpenSolaris 10) will have some security features (not necessarily all) of Trusted Solaris. It doesn mention MAC, which was specifically my question.
Will Trusted Solaris 10, complete with MAC, be open source too?