Some of your Linux administrators are wondering why migrate to AIX rather than Linux. One of the primary benefits of IBM Power Systems technology is it allows you to run both AIX and Linux. So what's the right choice? Let’s examine some of the factors that go into the decision.
First, it’s important to note IBM itself has no preference as to whether customers run AIX or Linux on their partitions. IBM’s virtualization solution, PowerVM, supports both. For that matter, IBM’s largest annual AIX event, the IBM Power Systems Technology University, is devoted to AIX, Linux and i education.
Years ago–when substantial licensing costs were associated with the number of AIX users on a box–the cost factor may have favored Linux. But this is no longer the case. Now the AIX or Linux call must be based on factors like performance, existing knowledge base, OS support, service-level agreements, application support, reliability and availability, and feature sets.
The Case For Aix
Raw performance Though this information is harder to come by these days, some studies show AIX outperforming Linux from 5 to 10 percent. If optimum performance is critical in your environment, these numbers cannot be overlooked. That said; don’t be afraid to also run your own benchmarks. Remember: Power systems can run Linux and UNIX partitions. So create two sandbox environments and run some tests. Really, it’s not that difficult.
Reliability AIX has been around for more than 20 years, and UNIX itself is in its fourth decade. While Linux is also fairly well established–its origins date to the mid 1990s–it’s not as mature an operating system as AIX. Certainly IBM has a significant stake in each solution. The company has played a considerable role in Linux’s growth in general, and devoted considerable resources to optimizing it on Power Systems. You can deliver high availability with Linux on Power Systems–high availability cluster multiprocessing (HACMP) has been available on Linux for two years, and numerous reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features (including Chipkill ECC, predictive failure analysis and automatch first failure data capture, and diagnostic fault isolation) have been added to the platform. But obviously, IBM’s invested much more time and effort in developing its UNIX flavor, AIX. HACMP on AIX has been around for more than 15 years. Make no mistake, this matters. For environments that must be available 24-7, without fail, AIX wins here.
Scalability While Linux has made substantial strides in recent years, especially since the introduction of the Linux 2.6 kernel, for environments where scalability is a priority UNIX is still king of the hill. This is particularly relevant when it comes to databases. You may be surprised to know Linux ranks third in OS market share, behind UNIX and Windows, for companies with relational database management systems (RDBMS). Why? The folks who spend the money for RDBMS tend to be conservative, and they often have the most to lose. MIS directors and CIOs are extremely comfortable with UNIX, and many of these professionals still view Linux as more of a back-office (e-mail, DNS) server.
Patch management AIX has sophisticated patch-management tools. With Linux, you’re much more on your own.
Recent enhancements One of the most important innovations in AIX 6.1 is live application mobility. Among other things, this allows administrators to move running workloads from one partition to another. Live application mobility uses IBM’s implementation of workload partitioning (WPARs), which is strikingly similar to Solaris Containers. This is just not available in Linux. So if this feature is important to you, AIX is a clear choice.
The Case for Linux
Many companies today are looking to standardize on one operating system. They acknowledge supporting multiple UNIX and Linux operating systems is expensive. By moving to Power Systems from Solaris and x86 servers, companies can not only standardize on one operating system with Linux, but on one hardware platform. In the process, they replace hundreds of stand-alone x86 distributed servers with a few Power Systems boxes running AIX. This can substantially decrease TCO, even more so than just consolidating or migrating servers.
Marketshare Clearly, Linux is the fastest-growing operating system. Why does this matter? Because the larger the market, the more products will be available and the more people will be there to support your environment. Along those lines, staffing engineers and administrators is far less expensive on Linux than it is on AIX.
Open systems Linux is available on x86, as well as virtually all types of hardware, including IBM mainframes. With AIX you’re married to Power Systems hardware.
Knowledge base If you already have a strong Linux administrations team, moving your servers to Power Systems running AIX may make sense. There’s less of a learning curve moving to AIX than there is moving to Solaris.
Application availability Linux applications greatly outnumber AIX applications. And now PowerVM for Lx86 allows you to run applications compiled on x86 without having to port them, the process of running Linux on Power Systems–and enjoying the benefits of server consolidation through IBM virtualization–is greatly simplified.
Tough Call
Consolidating your environment on the IBM Power Systems platform offers you the benefit of choosing your operating system. Either AIX or Linux may be right for you, but the decision isn’t necessarily easy to make. So take your time and evaluate all of the issues that apply to your unique environment. Don’t assume AIX is the automatic choice. It just may make more sense–as well as dollars and cents–to choose otherwise.
I am wondering now with IBM is buying Red Hat what would/could be the benefit?
Does AIX still have any advantages over Red Hat still today, three years after you wrote this post and if so will the code be opened up and migrated into Red Hat?
So that it runs as well on the power architecture with all the additional HA and management benefits?
I assume it's comparing AIX on POWER vs Linux on x86? Recently find out the TCO of AIX on POWER systems with consolidated multi-apps not necessary higher than Linux VM on x86 which mainly run single app.
Nice post. While IT Central Station does not yet have reviews for IBM AIX, your readers might find real user reviews for Linux or other IBM solutions from our user community to be helpful.
IT Central Station users also often compare Linux with Oracle Solaris. You can see a direct comparison between the two solutions here: https://goo.gl/kNjBaK.
HEHEHEH NOW Ibm get redhat so no IBM Own both aix and linux i think its successful deal
Looking at the old post with mixed feeling.
I am wondering now with IBM is buying Red Hat what would/could be the benefit? Does AIX still have any advantages over Red Hat still today, three years after you wrote this post and if so will the code be opened up and migrated into Red Hat? So that it runs as well on the power architecture with all the additional HA and management benefits?
I assume it's comparing AIX on POWER vs Linux on x86? Recently find out the TCO of AIX on POWER systems with consolidated multi-apps not necessary higher than Linux VM on x86 which mainly run single app.
Nice post. While IT Central Station does not yet have reviews for IBM AIX, your readers might find real user reviews for Linux or other IBM solutions from our user community to be helpful. IT Central Station users also often compare Linux with Oracle Solaris. You can see a direct comparison between the two solutions here: https://goo.gl/kNjBaK.