On Feb 13, 2012 2:21 PM, "Eddie Bachle" <enb10@albion.edu> wrote:
>
> In general, I am generally an simply an observer on most of these mailing lists, however my concerns with a switch are far less technical and far more practical. I work currently for a college in Michigan which utilizes almost solely Windows servers simply because it is what the IT staff here knows. As a student here, I was brought in to assist with the web server administration, and as time went by because I have a degree of Linux knowledge, I was given permission to put together a Ubuntu LAMP server to serve a couple of interested parties on campus who wanted simply to demo several small scale web apps that were Linux exclusive. This server would serve as an exception to the general rule of our server architecture. However as time has went by and my knowledge looks more like it will be a fixture here after graduation, along with the simple instability of PHP and Apache on the Windows platform, my boss is giving far more consideration to moving to Linux.
>
> As Linux gains more public recognition, more and more Windows-only organizations will consider using it as an alternative, especially for their web servers. This is especially true because of the fact that each of the necessarily main components of a web server exist in Linux in the same form as the do on Windows and often run much better. Then, the only piece one would need to learn would be the new operating system, not the database, HTTP server, or PHP scripting language software. However, this is going to be a more difficult proposition if the aforementioned advantage is somewhat eliminated. Were I to have to tell my boss that we could switch to Ubuntu but it would mean that would need to use a "MySQL compatible" database if we want to use the native database (which we likely would because it's tested to be stable and it is supported by the developers), then she would be much more hesitant.
>
> There simply is a much greater sense of trepidation for those who are not significantly Linux savvy if there exists a possibility that they would have to make something work in an unfamiliar environment, especially if it were to happen unexpectedly. If we ported our www website server over to Ubuntu and then 6 months down the road we were to upgrade our Joomla version and there became an issue with MariaDB because it lacks some MySQL feature that it needs, or even that Joomla would fail to recognize Maria as being equivalent to MySQL at some point, then that would be a huge detraction against switching.
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> Unless assurances that any software that asks for MySQL will recognize and accept MariaDB equivalents, and that this should always be the case, and that it will retain the stability and recognized benefits of MySQL, I would encourage extreme caution in encouraging a switch. Linux is beginning to grow into areas it previously didn't reach and bringing a far superior web server experience as well as simply a better operating system experience for many and I would not like to see that growth compromised. I would like to say we would still switch, or still heavily consider it for the grains that could be made by using Ubuntu, however realistically, the lack of native MySQL in any OS would be a huge mark against it. Also that being said, if the technical concerns are answered adequately for a vast majority of applications and hardware/OS setups, then I would be totally behind switching to a more open source friendly and compatible database software as there would be little love lost between me and MySQL.
>
> I hope this perspective helps a bit in considering this decision,
>Do remember that there's an alternative to MySQL/MariaDB: PostgreSQL.
I'm actually busy migrating the Windows infrastructure, and my target database is PostgreSQL.
Note: I am *not* recommending that Ubuntu replaced its default database from MySQL to PostgreSQL; If a company already deployed a MySQL-based app, then it should migrate to MariaDB, if only to prevent being trapped by Oracle into migrating into Oracle. But for those still exploring a migration to Linux, I won't hesitate to push them toward PostgreSQL instead. There are clear benefits of PostgreSQL over MySQL for the enterprise, and vv.
Rgds,
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