October 28, 2011

Comparing Linux servers

The German weekly "Computerwoche" has published an article comparing the different Linux server distributions. In the article, Computerwoche sheds light on their strengths and weaknesses.

It suggests that customers seeking to deploy mission-critical Linux servers should be sure to choose a distribution that offers professional and long-term support. If you were to base your decision solely on the article, this would mean Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Suse Linux Enterprise Server, Collax Business Server, or Ubuntu Server.

REALTECH's many years of experience with SAP on Linux, however, show that is important to look at this statement in a more nuanced way. SAP customers need to know that SAP only supports Red Hat and SUSE and that all other free distributions can be dismissed as irrelevant in this context.

Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) is another distribution on which SAP can be officially installed and run. As an IT consultancy with a strong background in SAP, however, we advise our customers to adopt Red Hat or Suse. Which of the two solutions is best suited for a specific company depends on its particular needs.

Linux is gaining increasing momentum in the world of SAP. This is not limited to migrations from other platforms to Linux but also includes new installations that start out with Linux. Our experience shows that most companies achieve significant savings of 30-50 percent when compared to SAP on UNIX and a return on investment (RoI) for migration projects in two years or less. Our customer Munich Re was able to cut investments in its server infrastructure by more than 80 percent and saw a RoI in far less than two years.

Follow these links for more information:
http://www.computerwoche.de/software/software-infrastruktur/2364083/ (in German)
http://www.realtech.com/wInternational/sap-consulting/sap-it-optimization/sap-linux-migrationsW3DnavanchorW262110257.php
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/linux