Thinking Unix: IT strategy for the long run
| This is an edited transcript of a webcast program. For a richer experience, watch the webcast. |
Analyst: Carol Baroudi
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Takeaway: Unix's rock-solid reliability means that its relevant now more than ever - and Linux puts Unix's power within reach.
Unix has been around for a very long time. We remember the rampant porting of Unix from platform to platform in the early 80s. Unix brought us access control and the very concept that one operating system could run on any platform. In the 80s running Unix was cutting edge.
It's some 30 years later and we're all abuzz about Linux. This time the revolution is about Open Source. Now that we have myriad hardware devices that have to interoperate across complex and convoluted networks, applications and user bases, keeping the underlying platform consistent only makes sense
And whether it's Unix or its little sibling Linux, the real reason we're so keen to keep this vetted operating system at the heart of our IT strategy is that it's remarkably reliable - it just keeps running year after year. We've heard tell of Unix machines that have been running without failure so long that after three years nobody's sure exactly where the box itself is and when it's found the dust is inches deep - yet there it is - keeping on keeping on.
That's what one wants from an operating system, after all. Reliability that is. Oh, yes, scalability, availability - those things are important as well. And the Linux to Unix continuum gives us that. Of course the other thing we want is affordability. And here it's important to understand the role of the operating system.
Nobody wants to hear, feel, touch or taste an operating system. A good operating system should simply just run - just like good hardware. No one buys a computer to run an operating system.
We buy computers to run the business applications that help us run our businesses. The more we treat the operating system as the commodity it can be, the less we'll be made to pay for the privilege of turning the computer on.
In our opinion, the operating system is really an extension of the hardware. If we can focus less on the OS and more on the applications, we'll be able to spend our dollars where they count.
Unix was designed to run on all platforms. It's written in C, a language designed to be hardware independent. The concepts of security and access control are integral to the operational design of Unix - not afterthoughts cobbled on in response to unforeseen attacks.
In fact, Unix has proven visionary. Its designers grasped the necessity of dealing with highly complex, evolutionary environments - environments that will forever introduce new technologies, grow and expand to incorporate the yet un-conceived innovation and simultaneously continue to support the applications that become central to our businesses.
If this is the case, why do we even need to talk about Unix? Why hasn't it been
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