The Future of Unix in Modern Data Centers

There was a time when the Unix operating system was the be all and end all when it came to enterprise application systems, the Internet and the hosting of mission critical applications. But, is that where it is today and where is it headed? Recent research by International Data Corp reveals the downward trend in the Unix server market which was at its peak of $17.6 billion in 2003 and has now dropped by an astonishing 48% to $9.1 billion in 2012. What is more shocking is that it is expected to drop to $8.7b by 2017.

RISC/ Itanium Unix Systems have been replaced by the x86 boxes in many data centers. There used to be stronger justifications for these systems ten years ago, but innovations in hardware and performance improvements in competitors have changed the landscape today. Today’s organizations are valuing scalability like never before. Upgrading processing power in systems by transparently adding nodes without having to melt the rack are what newer solutions offer.

As reported by gartner one of the most popular ways of moving towards the modern data center is to migrate from Unix to Linux. Red Hat offers professional ways of ensuring a smoother migration for enterprise wide systems. As per IDC statistics, the Linux server revenue is up by 3.4% and is also responsible for 23.1% of the total market. Interestingly, Windows servers make up 52.2% and Unix servers only 12.6%.

While the competition amongst HP and IBM gets hotter in the server space, Cisco is emerging as another contender to watch out for with it being reported as the fastest growing server vendor, showing an amazing 34.9 percent of revenue growth in the first quarter of 2013.

The choices are many, and the answer finally lies in what exactly you value for your business. For an in-depth analysis of what you can do best to move to a modern data center and to make the best choices to move into the next generation, do visit www.lifelinedatacenters.com for a free consultation today.

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.