Enterprise Linux: is it broken?

Enterprise Linux: is it broken?

Posted Nov 5, 2004 1:25 UTC (Fri) by garloff (subscriber, #319)
Parent article: Enterprise Linux: is it broken?

It's a bit funny to see arguments telling that Enterprise Linux is
unneeded and that a free distribution with some support from a 3rd
party would provide the same to the enterprise.

Let me give you an idea what's happening before an Enterprise Product
is released:
* integrating all components into an installable and managable
solution
* 6 month beta-testing and stabilization period
* heavy functional testing and stress testing
* ensuring with IHVs that server hardware is supported and functioning
well
* working with ISVs and ensuring their products work
* certification testing
* pushing some of the features that's wanted by many partners
* backporting a few features that have been implemented upstream
meanwhile and that are safe to backport

This obviously includes heavy engineering work to get all problems
resolved and fixed. A company that produces an enterprise Linux and that
I happen to know very well did create a couple of hundred bugfixes for
the Linux kernel during that period; almost all of which ended up being
merged upstream.

When the product gets released, there's HW and SW certified for/on it,
which gives some assurance to the user that the products will work and
that he can get support for it.

After the enterprise Linux is released, there will be
* Maintenance: Bugs and Security Problems get fixed; service packs
may add much-asked features if they don't put the stability and
interoperability with 3rd party SW at risk. And this is provided
for many years.
* Support: The engineers that have fixed all the bugs during the release
cycle know the code and can efficiently help with tracking down critical
defects, so providing good bug resolution times.

I seriously doubt that the same level of quality, stability and support
can be provided by a company offering support for e.g. Fedora Core or
Debian Linux.

I can see why the community does not need Enterprise Linux. The community
consists of developers who need cutting edge technology rather than
ultra-high stability and support offerings with short term response times.
I definitely don't need enterprise Linux on my machine I use for
developing the kernel or Python apps.

But I see no reason why one shouldn't acknowledge that there's businesses
out there that need Enterprise Linux. There obviously is a market. RHEL is
doing well there and there's at least one more company that does well
there also.

I rather see some slightly obscured trial to get part of the enterprise
business without needing to put the same level of effort into
engineering, stabilization, testing, certification, maintenance and
support than the current Enterprise Linux offerings do. Nice try.

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