Much of today’s enterprise-level software on UNIX caters to the business needs of large companies. And so it must support emerging technologies and follow the rapidly evolving market trends, such as the proliferation of the powerful, flexible Linux operating system. Because much of this software is large, multi-threaded, and multi-process, porting it to Linux presents challenges.
Porting enterprise apps from UNIX to Linux
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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64bit file access is different on 64bit Linux systems than on 32bit Linux systems.
Porting enterprise level applications/tools etc. would require the same enterprise features that Linux kernel/OS-ses are lacking at the moment.
eg. a file system wich keeps multiple versions of a file, automatically logging of stdout and stderr, hardware virtualizing, i think the list could be extensive.
At the moment i believe Linux is still a hobby environment.
The paragraph above reads like a marketing brochure. Since when do large tried-and-true enterprise applications need to “…support emerging technologies and follow the rapidly evolving market trends, such as the proliferation of the powerful, flexible Linux operating system.” If I were a manager and had someone come up and want to port a multi-million dollar software system for jollies, I’d probably spit my coffee all over them. Software is so complex that making it even more complex needlessly is just stupid. If the original platform were EOLed, that’s one thing, but otherwise don’t fix a working machine.
At the moment i believe Linux is still a hobby environment.
You probably are the only one who believes this, and you probably still watch 90210.
Porting enterprise level applications/tools etc. would require the same enterprise features that Linux kernel/OS-ses are lacking at the moment.
eg. a file system wich keeps multiple versions of a file, automatically logging of stdout and stderr, hardware virtualizing, i think the list could be extensive.
At the moment i believe Linux is still a hobby environment.
True, some of what you mentions are still lacking or at an immature state in Linux, but it is even more so in some other popular OSes that people successfully try to port things to. So I think Linux in spite of all its deficiencys could be quite successful in hobby oriented enterprises like large banks.
It is also questionable if things like hardware virtualization actually belongs in the OS. Things like that is probably better dealt with on sub OS level. Nobody in their right mind is going to run Linux directly on the iron of a Z390 anyway.
eg. a file system wich keeps multiple versions of a file, automatically logging of stdout and stderr, hardware virtualizing, i think the list could be extensive.
Eh, these have nothing to do with porting an application. They are services provided by the OS, and an application does not have any way to access such functionality.
As for the logging of stdout and stderr, I suggest you take a Unix 101 course somewhere.
Also, your reference to multiversion file systems intrigues me. It’s not a Unix feature at all.
automatically logging of stdout and stderr
That comment is just priceless. Who needs dilbert.com when you can read osnews.
It is also questionable if things like hardware virtualization actually belongs in the OS. Things like that is probably better dealt with on sub OS level. Nobody in their right mind is going to run Linux directly on the iron of a Z390 anyway.
Just a nit pick… it’s an s390. The zSeries branding came later.
osnews’ed, eh. IBM sweden’s AlterNet uplink seems to have a hangover. mmh.
Anyways about the topic, I don’t think implementing “automatically logging of stdout and stderr” is a real challenge to any real *nix administrator, Linux just got software virtualisation (I’ve heard it actually works!), and I think ReiserFS has this multifileversionthingie (which afaik isn’t a standard UNIX feature anyways)… Also the NPTL has improved the issues with multithreading, and please someone explain me if the addition/stabilisation of two or three ‘enterprise features’ turn a “powerful, flexible Hobby OS” suddenly into an enterprise solution thing. I think that is a quite distorted point of view..