The move from UNIX to Linux makes sense in almost any environment, and now, with today's economic environment and every budget being cut, it makes more sense than ever before. The TCO of the proprietary RISC/UNIX data center is going up. With the ROI of migrating to an open systems platform based on Intel Xeon processors being measured in months, you can become a corporate hero. The time to change the data center paradigm is now!
Third party information provided to you courtesy of Dell.Si mplifying UNIX Migration - Dell and Red Hat Pave the Way
THE CLIPPER GROUP
TM
SM SM Navigator Navigating Information Technology HorizonsPublished Since 1993 Report #TCG2009030LD July 1, 2009
Simplifying UNIX Migration -
Dell and Red Hat Pave the Way Analyst: David Reine
Management Summary The typical data center is facing a series of shortages due to the failings of an old, legacy infrastruc-ture that controls both the mission- and business-critical applications that drive the enterprise. The total ®cost of ownership (TCO) of this proprietary UNIX environment is putting a strain on the operational budget of the data center. Unfortunately, combined with a surge in the growth of corporate data, the legacy platforms powering the mission- and business-critical applications have been driving up the operational costs of the data center due to lagging performance, a lack of flexibility, inefficient floor space utilization, and excessive power consumption. This forces the IT staff to review the paradigm of legacy data center operations. In an effort to modernize, most enterprises have already deployed a network of open systems plat-forms to better handle infrastructure and other applications. Now the TCO for mission- and business-critical applications - including maintenance, administration, software licensing, staffing costs, as well as power consumption and floor space - is leading the enterprise to change the paradigm of its data centers. A choice needs to be made: either upgrade the existing legacy servers to a newer proprietary platform; or migrate the legacy environment to an open architecture, typically through the deployment ® ®of Intel -based servers with an open Linux operating environment. Many proprietary shops have al-ready made the decision to deploy on open systems with Linux and have seen the successes of these efforts. For them, the only questions that remain are which platform and which operating environ-ment? For others yet to make this decision, their questions include not only which platform and which operating environment, but also what applications, when, and how? In order to make the decision easier for the IT staff, Dell has teamed-up with Intel and Red Hat, and developed a migration strategy to simplify the consolidation of the enterprise data center from an outdated, proprietary architecture to T T ®easily managed open systems platforms running on Dell PowerEdge servers based on Intel Xeon ® ®processors and Red Hat Enterprise Linux . To learn more about how easy it is to migrate from UNIX to Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Dell PowerEdge servers, please read on.
TCO Issues in the RISC Data Center The enterprise data center populated with a variety of proprietary UNIX/RISC servers is rapidly approaching a crossroads. The IT staff can try to limp along by throwing money at an aging, perhaps obsolete, architecture in the face of budget reduc- tions. Or, they can migrate away from the legacy platforms that have been the backbone of their IN THIS ISSUE mission-critical environment for decades. Can the ¾ new Intel-based open system platform provide them TCO Issues in the RISC Data Center..... 1 ¾ with the performance they need with the reliability, Why Dell? ................................................ 2 ¾ availability, and serviceability (RAS) that their The Dell Solution .................................... 3 ¾proprietary servers have been delivering? Conclusion .............................................. 6
‹The Clipper Group, Inc. - Technology Acquisition Consultants Strategic Advisors ‹ ‹ ‹ ‹ ‹888 Worcester Street Suite 140 Wellesley, Massachusetts 02482 U.S.A. 781-235-0085 781-235-5454 FAX ‹Visit Clipper at www.clipper.com Send comments to editor@clipper.com TMJuly 1, 2009 The Clipper Group Navigator Page 2
Can the enterprise afford to retain an en- The IT staff needs to implement a migra-vironment plummeting towards end-of-life tion strategy that will enable the enterprise to where the TCO continues to rise every year in grow with flexibility while at the same time response to annual maintenance increases, simplify the IT infrastructure to effectively expensive support costs, and excessive software manage all ... [download for more]
