From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 14 19:19:43 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C52281065672 for ; Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:19:43 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tundra@tundraware.com) Received: from ozzie.tundraware.com (ozzie.tundraware.com [75.145.138.73]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 65DD48FC0A for ; Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:19:43 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [0.0.0.0] (ozzie.tundraware.com [75.145.138.73]) (authenticated bits=0) by ozzie.tundraware.com (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id p0EJJZvr004707 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-DSS-CAMELLIA256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Fri, 14 Jan 2011 13:19:35 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from tundra@tundraware.com) Message-ID: <4D30A1C6.7050808@tundraware.com> Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 13:19:34 -0600 From: Tim Daneliuk Organization: TundraWare Inc. User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101207 Thunderbird/3.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: FreeBSD Mailing List References: <4D3099FC.10807@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <4D3099FC.10807@gmail.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 1.1.1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.6 (ozzie.tundraware.com [75.145.138.73]); Fri, 14 Jan 2011 13:19:35 -0600 (CST) X-TundraWare-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-TundraWare-MailScanner-ID: p0EJJZvr004707 X-TundraWare-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-TundraWare-MailScanner-From: tundra@tundraware.com X-Spam-Status: No Subject: Re: FreeBSD Decision X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:19:43 -0000 On 1/14/2011 12:46 PM, Alessandro Baggi wrote: > Hi list, I don't want make a flame post but I would ask an objective opinion, then not a camp opinion, about using FreeBSD or Debian Linux in a production environment for solution as such as cluster of some service, proxy, SAN, performance, smp with an high number of cpu, PDC, Mail Server (qmail), raid software, security support and hardware support. I'm using Slackware Linux but in production environment there are problem with packages and distro update and other support. > Then for you, what is the best for those solutions? > > thanks in advance I work/consult in very large data center environments (> 1000 servers in production is common, and more for dev/test/stage). What you are asking has no simple answer (that why we consultants get paid what we do :) Both Linux and FreeBSD can do the things you ask, but there are larger environmental questions to be answered: 1) What OSs does the hardware vendor formally support? 2) What OSs do the 3rd party commercial applications vendors you use support? 3) Is your networking/HBA hardware supported by the OS? 4) What kind of third party system management and monitoring tools have to be in place? Are they supported on the target OS? 5) Do you need special or emergent capabilities like FCOE and does your target OS support them? 5) Can you get consulting services and/or outside support for your OS? IOW, your selection has less to do with the OS kernel and more to do with the set of tools, applications, and hardware that surround the OS. If all things are equal, I prefer FreeBSD because it has a smaller footprint on the hardware and is easier to install/maintain than Linux. However, whether we like it or not, there is far more commercial and third party support for *some* linux distros (RHEL and SLES). Given what you've told us, if it really does come down to Debian or FreeBSD, it sounds like you don't need much in the way of third party stuff. In that case, I'd use FreeBSD. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tim Daneliuk tundra@tundraware.com