Gartner, the well-known research firm, says its clients have begun planning their migration away from Unix.
For some, the move may happen in two to three years; for others, it could be five years. A handful might still be running Unix a decade from now; however, Gartner believes this operating system has become increasingly less relevant.
But predicting the demise of a technology requires some ability to see into the future and determine which operating system or alternative technology will replace Unix in the data center. Gartner analysts and their clients are deeply torn on this issue.
Today, the obvious replacements for HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, and other Unix variants are Linux, Windows, and mainframe operating systems. This conclusion, however, assumes that the tech world will continue developing along its current trajectory.
Gartner analyst George Weiss recently asked at the company’s Data Center Conference: “What is the operating system of the future?”
He predicts that for data centers building large-scale, scalable big data and cloud computing environments, OpenStack cloud platforms, the Hadoop big data framework, and emerging cloud operating systems represent the future direction. He said: “Do you think Unix can play any role in those environments?”
An IT manager at a large financial services firm, who declined to give his name or company, said he does not expect his organization to abandon Unix anytime soon. The operating system runs many of his company’s core, mission-critical business systems.
He said: “A ten-year strategy to retire Unix might be more realistic. That way, migrating away from the operating systems we currently use wouldn’t cause a huge panic.”
But the IT manager did acknowledge this point: the entire data center architecture will undergo dramatic changes in the coming years. He said: “The whole cloud operating system will change everything.”
Unix revenue has clearly been shrinking for over a decade. According to IDC, another well-known research firm, worldwide Unix revenue was $8.5 billion in 2012, down 22.8% from the previous year’s total of $11.1 billion.
In its freshly released third-quarter report this year, IDC stated that Unix server revenue was $1.3 billion, a 31% decrease from the previous year’s total revenue, making the latest quarterly total “the lowest quarterly Unix server revenue ever reported by IDC.”
IDC analyst Matt Eastwood said the Unix market is now feeling pressure for two reasons.
First, many data centers continue to shift workloads鈥攕uch as business application systems, online transaction processing systems, data warehouses, and analytics systems鈥攖o x86 servers running Linux. He said: “This is primarily done to reduce costs and achieve greater standardization across data centers globally.”
The second factor driving users away from Unix is spending constraints. Eastwood said: “The weak economy has accelerated the trend toward ‘good enough’ computing; ultimately, the low-cost platform wins out over the slightly more expensive one, whereas during a strong economy, the pricier platform might have clinched the deal.”
Ron Hughes, Acting State CIO at the California Department of Technology, said in his conference speech that California supports every variant of Unix, plus most other systems. Hughes indicated that as long as his clients want Unix support, his staff will provide it.
But looking long-term, Hughes pointed out that the greatest demand from his clients lies in open systems. Users are also very interested in integrated systems, such as Oracle’s Exadata appliance. Mainframe training is also in high demand.
As early as 2009, after Oracle acquired Sun, Georgia State University began migrating its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and other critical business systems from Solaris-based servers to Linux servers. Keith Campbell, Director of Technology Engineering at Georgia State University, stated this move was triggered because, following Oracle’s acquisition of Sun, educational institutions could no longer enjoy the deep discounts they once had.
The university’s migration to Linux “probably would have become a reality anyway, because at the end of the day, low-cost commoditized x86 hardware works perfectly fine,” Campbell said. He