Hesitating on Linux

While many IT organizations want to migrate from enterprise RISC/Unix to commodity x86/Linux, some companies I spoke with just recently said they were having second thoughts. Others were very cautious about pulling the trigger, as I mention in my story this week.

Bank of New York Mellon, Qualcomm and Marriott International all shared their concerns. One of the most interesting arguments was that the administrative overhead is much less with a Solaris system. That claim came from Qualcomm's director of IT, Matthew Clark. He estimated that the current user:admin ratio would drop from about 450 or 500:1 today to 150 or 175:1 with Linux. 

Clark did his review 12-18 months ago and he admits that the administrative tools for Linux have gotten a bit better. But he still thinks that he'd have to hire 2 admins for every one he has today if he migrated those high-end enterprise class Unix systems to Linux. 

Admin tools have been a strong suit for Sun. But does Solaris really still have that kind of advantage over Linux? Are there options that Clark might discover were he to do another in-depth assessment of Linux/x86 today that would truly make Linux competitive in the very high-end Unix space? 

Note: You'll find some interesting comments on Linux vs Solaris administrative tools in the comments to the story.