05-23-2011
2,
0
Join Date: May 2011
Last Activity: 10 December 2012, 6:49 PM EST
Posts: 2
Thanks Given: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Comparing experience with AIX, HP-UX, and Solaris
I'm investigating AIX/HP-UX/Solaris for use in a research environment. Although there is plenty of technical documentation online, some important questions can only be answered from long user experience. I'd like to hear whatever you can contribute if you can compare at least two of these.
To get more specific, the proposed deployment is workstations for lab work. I suppose this case is quite different from server use. On the workstations, there will be no commercial software other than the OS; most of it will be data analysis tools written by subject specialists. Instead of setting up one machine to run unchanged for a long time, the workstations will have frequent changes of configuration by users of varying levels of skill.
I have four main areas of concern about which I'd like to hear your comparative evaluation of the three platforms:
1. Ease of building software developed on other *nix platforms.
Most of the tools we install would be only available as source code. So a major convenience factor will be how much effort is required to get things to build properly on a particular platform. I suppose the two main factors to consider are how "standard" the Unix flavor is and availability of debugging tools.
2. Stability against application crashing.
The workstations will be used for long computation and compilation jobs as well as productivity tasks. It is very important that a crashing app hangs nothing more than itself.
3. Convenience and stability of OS level virtualization
Virtualization is I suppose the strongest strategy for isolating a process. It should be quick to set up, be lightweight and stable, and completely prevent unwanted interaction with the host OS.
4. Ease of maintenance.
When things go wrong (buggy app, bad driver, stupid user, etc.), how much effort to pinpoint the problem and find/implement a fix? I'm thinking of the combined effects of opacity of the system, quality of documentation, community help, etc.
Any other points of comparison between AIX, HP-UX, and Solaris I'd be glad to hear also.
Cheers