Re: Solaris: The Most Advanced OS?

[Nate Duehr <nate@natetech.com>]

Mike McCarty wrote:

>
> Well, I may not be the best one to ask, since I've been out of
> telecom for about three years. But so far, I do not see Linux
> making much if any entry into telecom. Blue Hat has made some
> progress, but not much. The availability requirements in telecom
> are so far beyond what most system engineers consider, that
> proprietary solutions are still mostly the choice.


<snip>

Well-written, Mike.

As one of those still in telecom -- the uptime requirements are amazing
at times.  And the joys of databases with a requirement of 150ms maximum
response time for a query on a nationwide network, much of which is
still running on 64K DDS circuits at the end-points.  Wheeee!

(And some carriers do this via UDP/IP!  EEEK!  Can you say "no packet
loss allowed" boys and girls?)

Another thing I've run into when discussing Linux with telecom folks is
the lack of reasonably priced hardware that meets the stringent NEBS and
other requirements for hardware running in the "dark" sites... telecom
is pretty picky about that sort of thing as well... they don't like
cheap PC's burning down un-manned Central Offices.

HP makes a NEBS-compliant PC/server, but it's price point is about equal
to a much more powerful Sun server that also meets the requirements.  If
there were any advantage cost-wise on the hardware, it might make sense
for all the proprietary Solaris-ware to go over to Linux or something
else, but when the hardware is equal in cost... no businessperson in
their right mind would port any of this stuff over.

Insurance companies rule the roost in the telco game, like many
industries.  If the hardware doesn't pass massively tough fire/power
testing (well beyond UL-listing), it often can't be brought through the
door.  Telco is the only industry where I've ever seen hardware that
both had to be "self-extinguishing" for fire and also be able to
withstand a shotgun blast from a 12-gauge at a pre-specified distance.

Of course, the above statement gives away that I've never built military
hardware. :-)

Nate