Choosing RedHat over another OS

[littlehelphere]

If this is not the correct forum please let me know (from a search of topics this seemed like the best spot).

I am a UNIX engineer/admin with 12+ years on Solaris. I have some experience with Linux but nothing compared to my Solaris experience. I now need to get into Linux engineering. I have read some of the books out there and have hands on admin experience, but I need something more in depth - possibly something similar to the Adrian Cockcroft's Solaris books (performance tuning, kernel, etc).

Also, I would like to know if there are any forums/books, etc on when it is better to go with Linux over Solaris. For example if you were to get a new requirements for a DB server how would you know Linux is a better choice over Solaris (all thing being equal)? With Sun you have the help of the reps and the tools quite a bit f documentation, but I have not seen anything similar for Linux. I know this is an extremely open ended question, but like I said I am new to this and need a bit of help. Thanks in advance.

[Rubberman]

All these are good questions. What you are purchasing from Red Hat (after all, the source code is free) is support. They are, from all accounts, quite good at the job, much as Sun is/was. If paid support isn't in your list of needs, then you can install CentOS or Scientific Linux which are up-to-date versions of RHEL, but with the logos and proprietary images and splash screens changed accordingly. All the code is the same (except that Scientific Linux has updated the Kerberos/AFS stuff somewhat) and can run binaries built for any of the others. They are stable, good for development work, excellent for enterprise class applications and database servers.

As for books, there are a ton of them out there. Two good sites are:

The Linux Kernel Archives - for information on the Linux kernel
The Linux Documentation Project - for more general linux documentation

Anyway, remember that Google is your friend!

[daark.child]

If you are just getting started with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, it maybe a good idea to go through the Deployment Guide which can be downloaded from here.

[littlehelphere]

Thanks to both of you for the replies. I will certainly take a look at the sites and read up in the documents. In addition to this I will pose a question , if you don't mind and I would like to know how you would proceed, or recommend to proceed.

App team A walks up to you and say they need a new DB server. What questions would you ask to determine the best OS for them? Lets say it is a medium size DB requiring 500GB of disk space 100 IOPS.

I propose the question above because I would like to see if the questions/process for a Linux deployment is much different than non-Linux. I suspect not but would appreciate if you would entertain me with answers. Thanks.

[greylica]

It's not too dificult to achieve 100 IOPS with the correct hardware ( but your enterprise have to be a conscious investor), you can use Intel or Vertex Extreme SSDs to achieve those IOPs using different controlers, instead of SCSI with Jbod or Raid 5. If you are using an SQL within a dedicated server, it will be easy to install and deploy, considering your DB software is Linux compatible.
If your DB software is Linux ready, your learning curve will be like a simple chess L horse moving, 3x2 .
I recommend ad least 8~10 INtel X25E 128GB SSDs in Raid 5 or Jbod using 2 or 3 different controlers ( most of the time, the bottleneck are PCI Express bus related, then, the use of native controllers only will give 533 MB/S limiting IOPS) or a NAS connected directly to your server using GB or Optical Nics using ISCSI protocol, 12~32GB RAM for caching, a Dual Opteron Bulldozer (eight/twelve) or Dual Xeon (eight/twelve with or without HT enabled) and a stable distro, Debian or Red Hat based. There are some ''one server fits all'' options in the market.
Well, I've expressed my opinion taking in consideration your database size, and number of IOPS required, and a server lifetime of 2~3 or more years, depending on the database growing.

Good Vibes !