Data Center Deathmatch

By Moshe Bar

May 5, 2003

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This month four years ago, I started writing this column at BYTE.com. Back then, the 2.2 Linux kernel had just been released (today we are close to 2.6). With the new security features of ipchains, the improved SMP support, a totally new TCP/IP stack and tons of other new features, Linux for the first time became a viable server platform. It was four years ago that Informix and Sybase announced support for the Linux operating system, and were shortly followed by Oracle. Nowadays, many software and hardware vendors proclaim Linux to be their most important platform. Oracle's Larry Ellison just recently said in an interview to Dell's Insight magazine: "Linux is a spectacular new answer to some of the issues that are facing enterprise IT managers today." So, Linux is rising to replace Solaris and Windows in the data center. But can it really? Does it have the power and versatility to do so? Does Linux really lower the datacenter's TCO (total cost of ownership)?

Certainly the least important aspect of Linux is the price tag. Just because you don't spend money on the OS license doesn't mean you will actually get lower running costs. What really drives Linux adoption is commodity computing, which allows data center to shift applications from expensive, proprietary platforms like Sun's or HP's and take advantage of the Intel economics. Commodity computing does ultimately lower the total cost of ownership for data centers. However, CIOs will only adopt new platforms if they perform as well or better than the older ones.

Being determined to find out if Linux can indeed replace proprietary platforms, I spent the last two months pitting Linux against Solaris and Windows. Looking for servers you typically find in a data center in $15-17K range, I used an idle Sun Fire 280R at a friend's shrinking software company. It is configured with very typically, with dual 1 Ghz CPUs and 4 GB RAM, and two 10,000 RPM SCSI disks on one SCSI controller. Since the standard offering on these machines is Solaris 8, I made a fresh install of this OS on the Sun machine.

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