|
Sun leads with software and services
After flirting briefly with Linux, Sun Microsystems has gone
back to what it does best—Solaris. Except this time there's a twist in
the tale, says Prashant L Rao
 Sun
Microsystems has historically been very successful at building communities around
software with Java being a case in point. However, it has hitherto failed to
take advantage of this phenomenon. In the case of Java, the likes of IBM and
BEA have benefited more than Sun whose application software is now bundled for
free with the Solaris operating system. Speaking of Solaris, the OS had begun
to look like a mature product. Moreover, on the x86 platform, Solaris was long
considered a resource hog. As Sun publicly flirted with Linux a couple of years
back, the company's focus upon Solaris wavered and it even dropped the x86 version
for a period in favour of Linux. At that point of time, Sun seemed to be going
all out in trying to sell enterprise software stacks with its Java Enterprise
System and Java Desktop System. While Sun announced JES wins abroad, it is still
a non-starter in India due to its pricing model. Licensing based on per employee
per year hasn't clicked in India as a lower percentage of Indian employees are
connected to IT systems when compared with users in the Western world. With
the release of Solaris 10 and the profound changes in its licensing model (it
is open source and free for download), Sun has stopped sitting on the fence
and come out swinging behind its bread-butter-jam-and-cake OS.
Solaris 10 has received rave reviews, particularly for its DTrace tool which
lets IT heads pinpoint and address performance bottlenecks. This time around,
Sun is taking the fight to the commercial Linux camp by giving away Solaris
10 for free. Enterprises will still have to pay for support services but when
you consider that enterprise class Linux costs as much as Windows Server, that's
not bad at all. Add a renewed focus on services to the mix, a strong thrust
on Opteron boxes running Solaris and you get an organisation that's hot and
ready to do battle for the high-volume x86 server segment.
Solaris 10--the server OS redux
IDBI Bank uses Solaris to run its core applications-core banking, treasury,
front & back office. Sanjay Sharma, the bank's head of IT says, "We
are using Solaris to run Finacle which is currently available on the older version
(Solaris 9). We have seen the features of Solaris 10; technology-wise it is
a superior product, and we will definitely pilot it once Finacle is ported onto
the OS."
So what makes Solaris 10 a better bet than its predecessor or any other server
OS for that matter? For starters, it supports 'Solaris Containers'. These are
a software alternative to full-blown partitioning that work very well on mid-range
servers where partitions can be an overkill. It ties nicely into Sun's renewed
focus upon Opteron-based servers. It's not that other vendors do not have similar
technology. Microsoft has WSRM (Windows System Resource Manager) and HP's coming
up with Secure Resource Partitions. That said, this is an essential feature
that was missing in Solaris and its addition is welcome. DTrace, the performance
tuning tool is the one that has garnered the maximum praise from users. Zeroing
in on performance bottlenecks is mighty hard to do and by providing a tool that
lets IT administrators do this as part of the OS, Sun has stolen a march on
its competitors. DTrace being part and parcel of Solaris helps in more ways
than one. As a constituent of the OS, it doesn't add to the overhead unlike
third-party profiling or debugging tools. There's also a new file system called
ZFS that sports 128-bit addressing to support humongous disk capacities. ZFS
also takes the concept of storage virtualisation a step forward by doing away
with the requirement for a volume manager to virtualise multiple disks. Sun
is also claiming 19 nines reliability and "endian neutrality" that
lets administrators move disks from Solaris-x86 boxes to Solaris-SPARC servers
as their workloads grow without having to backup, reformat and restore data.
Sun India states that there have been 500 to 1,000 downloads of Solaris 10 from
India. Beta testing has been going on for the past ten months.
Taking commercial Linux head on
Solaris 10 has a new kernel service that allows Linux applications to run without
modifications taking a small performance hit to the tune of five percent. Sun
has committed that it will open source Solaris 10. The stakes are high, Sun
has sunk half a billion dollars into developing the OS.
Ashit J. Panjwani, national manager Alliance & Marketing Onward Novell Software
India makes a pertinent point when he says, "Linux and open source are
very different from Solaris, regardless of how Solaris is priced. Linux offers
customers real choice-a choice of platform, flexibility of deployment, access
to the OS code, a huge community dedicated to its success and the backing of
multiple vendors. Solaris doesn't have that."
While it is true that Solaris does not have the kind of community support that
Linux has, analysts cite Sun's success in building the Java community and speculate
that Sun might well succeed in building a community around Solaris 10 as well.
Indian CIOs running mission-critical applications on Solaris have welcomed the
open-sourcing of its latest avatar.
Freeing Solaris
 |
 |
|
We have seen the features of Solaris 10. Technology-wise it is a superior
product, and we will definitely pilot it once Finacle gets qualified on
the OS.
Sanjay Sharma
Head-IT, IDBI Bank
|
Linux and open source are very different from Solaris, regardless of
how Solaris is priced.
Ashit J. Panjwani
National Manager
Alliance & Marketing Onward Novell Software India
|
Sun has announced that Solaris 10 will be available as a free download and
that the RTU (right-to-use) licenses are free. Enterprises will only have to
pay for support. While on the surface this looks attractive, Sharma makes an
interesting point. "Generally, you buy any Unix OS bundled with the hardware.
The RISC box comes with an OS and there is no option to run, say, HP UX on a
Sun box. Unless there is a substantial discount it makes no difference,"
he says. He goes on to point out that while you have the choice of running Windows
or Linux on an Intel box from HP or IBM, on a SPARC box your options are limited
to Solaris, concluding, "It will be a big challenge for Microsoft provided
that third-party applications are available. Customers will have a choice when
it comes to deploying EWA. On Intel hardware it is mostly Windows or, for an
organisation like ours, Linux. This will be a third option that is proven, stable
and suitable. By deploying EWA on Intel instead of RISC we will have another
option to reduce costs."
Leading enterprise Linux vendors do not intend to change their strategy in response.
They believe that they have been doing the same thing all along.
"We are flattered that Sun is following Red Hat's pricing model. We will
continue bringing choice to our customers through our broad ecosystem of partners
including industry leaders and over 1,000 Red Hat-certified ISVs," says
Javed Tapia, director-India, Red Hat India.
As far as Solaris 10's impact upon the pricing of enterprise
Linux goes, it's business as usual, at least for now. "Our Enterprise Linux
offerings are already on a subscription basis, in which customers don't pay
a license for the software, but pay for aintenance and support," adds Panjwani.
Solaris+Opteron= x86 server sales?
"We hope to have a similar [to its competitors, HP & IBM] footprint,"
says Rajesh Rege, director, Sales, Sun Microsystems India when questioned about
Sun's x86 server sales. That's an ambitious statement but not one that's unachievable
by any means. That said, there's a big question mark about Sun's commitment
to x86 hardware. We have seen the company launch servers that had everything
going for them and yet somehow the execution didn't quite come off.
If Sun does pull it off, it will finally have made its mark in the Indian x86
server space where it has never been a significant player unlike the domestic
Unix server market that it has dominated all along.
Sun says that Solaris 10 is certified to run on x86 systems from rivals HP and
IBM. A look at the hardware compatibility list on sun.com reveals that this
support is more of the nature of a Solaris user reporting that the OS runs on
a particular machine. Proper certification of Solaris 10 running on x86 server
models has not yet been conducted. As we went to press all the 28 items listed
on the x86 hardware compatibility list for Solaris 10 on Sun.com were from Tier
Level: 'Reported to Work'. The comparable list for Solaris 9 lists 30 systems
that passed Test Suite Level 1 and another 26 that cleared Test Suite Level
2. Level 1 system certification currently includes eight test cases and runs
for approximately 24 hours. Level 2 certification includes the same test cases
as Level 1, but Level 2 tests run for approximately 120 hours and put more stress
on the system. Over and above Level 1 & 2 certified systems come Sun-certified
systems. There are none yet for Solaris 10 (it’s still early days) but
even in the case of Solaris 9, all nine x86 servers directly certified by Sun
are its own models.
Here comes the Solaris
Solaris 10 dispels the confusion that was cast on Sun's strategy by its half-hearted
embrace of Linux. It will, at the very least, help Sun defend its turf from
competitors and at the same time expand its presence in IT shops that run Solaris
in their data centre. This is more likely to happen if Sun ensures proper certification
of x86 hardware from its rivals as a CIO who is already running his core application
upon Solaris is quite likely to run it on an existing Intel/AMD box if he is
sure that it will deliver.
| Sun has quietly increased its focus on
services. There's a catalogue of fifty Sun-branded services that the company's
channel partners such as Wipro, TCS and CMC sell and deliver. "Our
implementation partners keep most of the revenue. The customer pays a premium
for Sun-branded services," says Anil Valluri who is the country director-client
solutions organisation at Sun Microsystems India enunciating the marketing
model for CSO (Client Services Organisation) in India which is very different
from the tack taken by Sun in the US where it directly implements services.
Taking this into consideration, the six going on ten percent share of Sun
India's turnover accounted for by its services group is quite significant.
"In Asia, the channel involvement is a lot higher [than in the US].
In South Asia it is all through the channel," explains Valluri. |
| Company |
Implementation |
| TTSL |
CRM system |
| Punjab National Bank |
Managed services & Core Banking system |
| Army HQ |
Created a portal |
| VSNL |
Merged the messaging systems of Dishnet with those
of VSNL when the latter acquired the former |
| |
Source: Sun Microsystems India |
| Type of support |
Price--per CPU, per year |
What it entails |
| Basic |
$120 |
Upgrades, updates and patches |
| Standard |
$240 |
Five days a week, 12x5 phone support |
| Premium |
$360 |
24x7 phone support |
| Note: These prices are indicative; the
final Indian pricing is yet to be worked out. Organisations can mix and
match the types of support that they avail within a site. |
| Source: Sun Microsystems
India |
prashant@expresscomputeronline.com
|
