What Are the Migration Options?

The fact is that whatever your current environment, you cannot afford to avoid considering what you should be doing in the future. This is necessarily a continuous process, as technology and business situations change. So, once you have made the decision that you need to investigate migration as a possible business strategy, what are your options?

In the current market, the alternatives are either to migrate to Linux or to Windows .

Moving to Linux

For organizations with a large installed base of UNIX applications, moving to Linux would initially seem to be attractive. The immediate benefits would be that you could:

• Migrate UNIX applications with minimal changes.

• Move to PC-based architecture, thus reducing hardware costs.

• Acquire an operating system at little or no apparent cost.

While it cannot be denied that migrating your applications to Linux with minimal changes is a compelling reason to consider this route, it is worth considering whether the disadvantages outweigh the benefits.

There are a number of companies that provide their own distribution of Linux, so you have almost as much choice of Linux builds as variants of UNIX. Linux certainly is making great strides in the marketplace , primarily as the operating system for smaller Web sites where a free operating system is a major factor, but does that make Linux a suitable choice for your enterprise?

To make a true assessment of the suitability of Linux, you need to look at the following areas:

• Do I need an enterprise-wide directory service?

• Do I need to support clustering or load-balancing?

• Will I need to integrate with a heterogeneous environment?

• Will I need to use features on Linux that will tie me in to a single vendor?

• Do I need consistent, integrated, enterprise management?

• Will I require a well-defined enterprise roadmap of future innovation and features?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, you may find that Linux provides a less than ideal solution.

Moving to Windows

For many from a UNIX background, just thinking of migrating to Windows is tantamount to treason. However, if you take a look at the complete picture, you may find that there are significant advantages in taking this path . The main advantages of taking the Windows route are that you receive:

• The best price-to-performance ratio.

• The lowest total cost of ownership.

• An enterprise-level directory service.

• Integrated management and security model.

• Rapid application development tools.

• Built-in clustering and high availability technologies.

• Worldwide enterprise support.

• Large network of trained consultants .

While this list represents just a fraction of the potential benefits of moving to the Windows environment, these are probably some of the factors highest on your list. However, there is one main area of concern that is not covered here, that of migrating existing UNIX code to the Windows platform, which is covered in Migration or Coexistence? later in this chapter.

For more information on the detailed benefits of migrating from UNIX to Windows 2000, see the white paper at http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/interop/unixmgrtn.asp .

Evaluating the Long- Term Risks

Ultimately, your decision on which path to take will depend largely on the risks associated with each course of action.

Specifically, do you choose an easier migration to a more uncertain operating environment? Or do you look beyond the immediate migration task to the longer-term support and stability of your chosen infrastructure?

Understanding the Linux Revenue Model

Many companies are starting to offer Linux-based solutions, and the Linux builds that they distribute are becoming increasingly proprietary in nature. Because these businesses provide the operating system for nothing or at a nominal fee, they must necessarily base their revenue models heavily on providing support rather than on supplying the software itself.

The economic realities of this business model mean that either you pay them for support and they flourish, or you solve your problems in-house and your supplier quietly exits. While this guide does not pretend to be an impartial reference, this is an argument that needs serious consideration. Taking this argument to its logical conclusion, the most successful Linux distributor of the future is likely to be the one that gets paid the most for support.

Understanding the Microsoft Revenue Model

By charging for licensing its applications and operating systems, Microsoft is not dependent on support revenues for financial stability. Therefore, Microsoft expects to be a constant in the future IT landscape, continuing to work with hardware and third-party software vendors to enhance and develop both the .NET Framework and the forthcoming Enterprise Server family.