Is Sun Solaris on its deathbed?

As a long-time Linux user and a new Solaris user, I found the article “Is Sun Solaris on it's deathbed” to be misguided. Firstly, I think that there definitely are some people who are taking a fresh look at Solaris and especially OpenSolaris. In my case, my exposure to an extremely diverse Linux environment has shown me the appeal of the consistency and compatibility that Solaris offers. Even the differences between Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris, which seem to bother many Solaris admins, seem minor compared to the differences between Linux distributions.

I think there are a few factors related to finding experienced Linux administrators versus Solaris administrators. Most people agree that the best way to learn something is to use it in production. Linux has really only been accepted in the enterprise for about 5 years, which is pretty short in comparison to Solaris. An admin who has worked with Linux for 5 years can be considered experienced. On the other hand, an admin who has worked with Solaris for 5 years is a relative newcomer.

Solaris is known for reliability, and the deployments where it is used have tended to reflect that. This has led the companies who deploy it to demand experienced admins. As stated above, being an experienced Solaris admin is a much higher bar than with Linux. This leads those companies compete for the best of a limited supply of experienced administrators. It also makes it a very difficult specialty to break into.

To address these issues, I think Sun needs to do more to showcase the benefits of Solaris as well as to encourage more people to learn the system. Either one of these alone isn't going to address the problem. By doing both, you create both more demand for the system as well as more people qualified to administrate it. This is one area where Linux has been remarkably effective.

I think the demand for DTrace and other advanced tools relates to the kind of environments where a system is used. It used to be that applications scaled vertically. It was expensive to add capacity because at some point the whole system needed to be replaced. Administrators were required to learn how to ensure maximum reliability and to wring every last drop of performance out of the system due to the expense of an upgrade. This demanded advanced tools like DTrace.

Today, more and more applications are scaled horizontally. Rather than spend time pouring over the internals of the system followed by extensive tuning to improve performance by 10%, it's easier to just add another server and ignore the problem. Because of this mindset, Linux hasn't required the kind of tools that Solaris brings to the table. I think that efficiency efforts may be changing this mindset, because people are realizing that the cost of a server over it's lifetime is much more than the initial purchase price.

What can be done about this? I think that Sun needs to do a better job of showing what these tools bring to the table. They should also show that most applications deployed on Linux can be deployed on Solaris with minimal effort and that the tools Solaris offers will let companies get more out of their hardware investment.

I also think that Sun should clarify the relationship between OpenSolaris and Solaris. If I were to start a business, in the beginning I'm more likely to use OpenSolaris on commodity hardware and find my own solutions to any problems that arise. As the business grew, I'd be more likely to be interested in hardware optimized for Solaris and long-term support. I think clarifying the road map could make companies considering OpenSolaris more comfortable in that decision.

The final thing that I think Sun should do is to calm people's fears about using Solaris. Many startups have minimal money to spend, and so they don't want to start with one platform only to run into a wall that requires them to shell out a ton of money. People know that Linux is Free, and that if they want to support themselves they can use it without paying for it and that nobody will come in and take it away. I think more small businesses would use Solaris and OpenSolaris if Sun can show that they are safe choices.