Re: openSUSE as small bussiness server

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=FCnther?= Schwarz <strap@xxxxxx> wrote:
Bernd Felsche wrote:
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=FCnther?= Schwarz <strap@xxxxxx> wrote:
Andreas Stieger wrote:

This is why you maintain a server setup and administration log. If
the server is mission critical, give it appropriate attention.

Of course. But then the problem of short lifetime still remains.

Not a problem for a lot of companies. They like to "roll over" their
server hardware every 3 years or so anyway.

That is one year too much for openSuSE ;-)

The risk of not upgrading tends to be less than the risk of
upgrading for most systems behind a firewall.

I've got several systems on SuSE 10.0; and a couple on 8.2.
The 8.2 runs a legacy system. I suggested that they upgrade to 10.0
some years ago but they didn't think it necessary and everything was
and is still running fine as far as they are concerned.

There must be good "accounting reasons" as technically;
server-class hardware runs for a decade or more if you look after
it reasonably well.

The same applies for the operating system. But like one runs out of
warranty and spare parts supply for the hardware the operating systems
runs out of service and support. There are only a few exceptions to
this.

I seem to be dealing mostly with exceptions. :-)

If you're using SLES, then you will have an older kernel than
openSuSE; and migration to new server hardware can be hampered.
Somebody will have to back-port drivers.

This is done by Novell or the hardware companies. If one finds support
for Linux in server hardware (or business class PCs), it will be for
Red Hat or SLES/D, not for any community distribution including Debian.
This is different for desktop or especially notebooks where in general
the latest kernel and distribution works best.

The user population of SLES is much smaller than openSUSE, so it
takes longer for bugs to be found. SLES end-users sometimes find
themselves with bleeding-edge hardware where some of the hardware
cannot be used, or fully-used because of the back-porting effort.

Dedicated server distributions for professional use also have a
documented and tested upgrade path.

The security of operation is in the _maintenance_. Nothing prevents
a third party from providing the same level of support.

SLES support is from Novell. They too are a "third party" on Linux
systems.

SLES is a typical Linux system.

Who "makes" Linux? SLES is largely packaging and support on top of
Linux. There are a few proprietary goodies thrown in; a few of them
are hooks for further proprietary stuff.

Not that I have anything against proprietary stuff that actually
works at a reasonable price. :-)

The point is that Novell is effectively a third party in the game.
Other third parties can provide similar levels of support; even for
openSUSE.

There is no magic to the word "Enterprise" in the product name
except in the eyes of marketing and some levels of management.

Why not new hardware? The old hardware can be redeployed to other
tasks; perhaps as a warm standby, or as part of a cluster.

So you suggest replacing the hardware every two years? IMO a waste
of time and money.

I always recommend that the new system be tested on "new" hardware.
It is not nearly as much a waste of time and money as trying to
upgrade a live system, and later discovering that you've spent the
past 196 hours non-stop, trying to make things work again.

When things stop working and you have paid support, the first thing
that happens is that everybody claims that it's not their problem.
Even when it's a one-stop-shop; it'll be that you're not using the
system correctly. BTDT-GTTS.
--
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
\ / ASCII ribbon campaign | Science is the belief in
X against HTML mail | the ignorance of the experts.
/ \ and postings | -- Richard Feynman
.

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