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I´m extremely busy this weekend to prepare some presentations, thus i decided to write a rather short article about a topic nevertheless important to many customers. This time, i don´t talk about a function of Solaris or a neat trick with the tools of the operating Environment. I just want to talk about a underrated feature of Solaris: The long support cycle.

Sometimes, you find some features and services of Sun by mere chance: Sun Shared Shell. Sounds really cool. A collaborative shell. Really helpful when you need to support a system at a customer site. And even more interesting: This is really a shell to to work collectively on a system with multiple user level (execute, non-execute (you can´t submit a carriage return) and view-only), you can draw on the window and you have a chat to communicate). A really nifty tool.

The "Unbreakable Linux Support"-Announcement generated some buzz since yesterday. But ... you should look very precise and look beyond one´s one nose to take alternatives into considerations.

An example: Take an Sun Fire X2200 M2 with 2 processors. This is a system, Oracles marketing touts for it´s RAC deployments. Small node, not much availability knickknack.

• Support 24x7 (Premium Support) for Redhat AS: 2499$ (Quelle: Redhat.com Store)
• Support 24x7 (Premier Support) for Linux at Oracle : 1199$ (Quelle: Oracle UBL FAQ)
• Support 24x7 (Gold) for Solaris X86 at Sun: 420$ (Quelle: sun.com-Store)

And to add insult to injury: The price for Solaris contains hardware maintance Monday to Friday from 8-8 with onsite technican in 4 hours. And now tell me that Sun is expensive, Oracle cheap and the Redhat pricing isn´t downright obscene.

One of the most cited myths is "Linux is cheaper than Unix". More than one customer told me, that Solaris is to expensive. Okay, if you don´t believe me, Ben Rookwood of cuddletech posted a comparision in his weblog:

RHEL 4 ES, "Standard" 2 Socket Annual Contract: $799
9-5 M-F Phone Support
2 Day SLA on Web Requests
4 Hour Phone SLA
Web Support, Updates, etc.
Solaris 10 "Standard" 2 Socket Annual Service Plan: $480
9-5 M-F Phone Support
4 Hour Phone SLA
Web Support, Updates, etc.
Solaris 10 "Premium" 2 Socket Annual Service Plan: $720
24/7 Phone Support
Live Phone Transfers on SEV1, No Callbacks.
Plus all the Standard stuff...

You pay more to get less ... well ... what a good deal.