I’m curious as to the differences between using a commercial, supported version of Linux in the enterprise and a non-supported one. Now, I know all the regular arguments – they’re implicitly stated in my article about Icarus Support Contracts.
But here’s the beef: I’m not convinced that commercial Linux companies really offer a safety net. Or to put it another way – they may offer the net, but I’m yet to see much evidence that it’s actually secured to anything. It almost seems a bit like the emperor’s new clothes, and I believe we’re seeing a real surge in popularity of distributions such as CentOS for precisely this reason.
Here’s the sorts of things I’ve commonly seem from customers with commercial enterprise Linux distributions who say, log support cases with the Linux distributor:
- Being advised to just simply apply the latest patches – OK, sometimes this is valid, but we all treat such recommendations with caution;
- Being advised to search Google forums, etc.;
- Being mired in finger pointing hell – it seems that most features or components a company will want to log a case over aren’t covered by the expensive support contracts that come with enterprise/commercial Linux;
- Getting average and/or highly complicated responses that don’t inspire confidence.
In short, I worry that commercial enterprise Linux distributions provide few tangible benefits over repackaged or alternate distributions.
As proof that I’m serious about this subject, I’ll say something that years ago may have made me apoplectic: Even given how little I like Microsoft’s products, my honest observation is that companies with Microsoft support contracts get substantially more benefit at substantially lower cost than those who have similar support contracts with the enterprise commercial Linux vendors.
So, I’m asking people to convince me I’m wrong – or at least provide counter-arguments! If you’re using a commercial, enterprise Linux, please help me understand what value you get out of their support programmes – examples of problems they’ve solved, and how they’ve proved themselves equal to (or better than) support offerings from either Microsoft or other Unix providers. Any examples/stories that touch on data backup/recovery or storage would be of particular interest.
So feel free to add a comment and let me know what you think!
