As many of you are probably aware the officially supported nodalpoint Linux distribution is Debian. Seriously though, most of our regular contributors are Debian users and we can probably thank Dopey for setting us straight (orignially I was running nodalpoint point on a RedHat server). Now there are many reasons why Debian is a better choice than RedHat for use in an academic environment (security, flexibility, package dependencies etc.). There are also good reasons why you would choose to run RedHat over Debian in a commercial environment, the main one being support contracts from commercial vendors like IBM. This thread over at slashdot on Using Debian in Commercial Environments is a good roundup of the issues involved. The consensus seems to be "Don't run Debian if it voids your support contracts with IBM".
So now I am faced with a similar situation. My current lab has purchased the Tivoli backup system from IBM and of course the only supported platform is RedHat. So my question is should I give up my Debian web server in favor of RedHat so the IBM engineers can install the Tivoli access manager or should I deal with the installation myself using alien ? I find this situation rather annoying (for selfish reasons maybe ?) but we are in an academic environment and not a commercial one. It makes sense to me to save money implementing our own backup solutions and use the grant money to hire more people ?
Comments
Tivoli backup on Debian
We have used Tivoli Backup on Debian Woody and Sarge installations, using alien to convert the .rpm to .deb packages.
Works like a charm, you need to write your own script for /etc/init.d, but backup and restore is no problem.
Pros and cons
My thoughts are:
- backup is good and all too often ignored. We're still waiting in our department after at least 5 years of discussion. My group has a kludge set up by me.
- choosing and setting up backup is a PITA. So if someone else does it for you, that's great. Well worth paying for if you ask me.
- RedHat is pants, so if you can deal with it via alien (that how-to looked pretty good), go ahead. I quite often use alien and it works pretty well.
$300 USD
I agree. What I find annoying is paying $300 US to use the software (Tivoli access manager) to backup the webserver when I will end up doing all the installation work. Nonetheless I think installing the RPMs via alien is probably my best option. Installing RedHat seems undesirable to say the least...
If you switch to RH, does all
If you switch to RH, does all admin get taken up by IBM? That would be tempting. If however, you wind up having to admin an RH box just to make the install process a little easier for them, I'd go with alien. Everyone knows real geeks use Debian :-)