IBM AIX (for Advanced Interactive eXecutive) is a Unix operating system, developed, offered and supported by IBM.
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Ubuntu
Score 8.8 out of 10
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Ubuntu Linux is a Linux-based operating system for personal computers, tablets and smartphones. There is also a Server version which is used on physical or virtual servers in the data center.
The only real comparable competitors to IBM AIX come from the Linux world. Linux is beginning to approach the reliability and stability of IBM AIX and is often a better choice. Linux also has a shorter update cycle with more significant leaps in functionality and feature sets. …
IBM AIX is well suited for mission-critical applications, especially the ones that need to run on well-performing hardware and need less downtime. It is also perfect for applications that need a lot of CPU, because AIX scales well on the IBM POWER hardware, so adding additional CPU almost always generates higher performance/throughput. IBM AIX runs unmodified from the smallest IBM POWER machine (S1022, with 12 Power10 cores) to the biggest machine (E1080, with 240 Power10 cores). Because IBM POWER systems have very fast CPU’s, you typically need a lower number of CPU’s when compared to alternatives. This may bring a reduction in cost for software licensed per core. Unfortunately, not all software vendors port their software to IBM AIX, so sometimes you may have to run Linux on POWER, or skip the POWER platform altogether. But many vendors happily support AIX and POWER.
If somebody whishes to be an IT professional, learning the basics of Linux is amust. Ubuntu [Linux] is one of the most beginner-friendly, widely supported, easy-to-use-relative-to-the-fact-that-its-still-linux OS on the market. As somebody who learned the basics of UNIX/LINUX on Ubuntu, it was a very good experience. It is customizable, has a lot of improvements over the years, and live up to be a viable alternative to any modern OS in 2021 as well.
Stability. In the 14 years that I have used the product, I cannot think of a single time that we had an OS level failure. It is rock solid. We have had systems that have been booted and run for literally years without interruption.
Virtualization. We run IBM AIX as LPARS on Power infrastructure. All of our AIX infrastructure is virtualized making it easy to scale as needed.
Their logical volume manager makes the task of managing storage very simple. It is feature complete and they have mitigated much of the complexity that usually is inherent in LVM implementations.
I have a love/hate relationship with Smit. It is their administrative interface. It is very powerful and very complete which is why I marked it as a pro. It is also a bit clunky and somewhat arcane in its interface but still usable.
A lot of the built-in commands have not been updated in years. If you're used to some fancy CLI options in Linux, you may be out of luck with AIX.
Out of the box, you cannot run open-source Linux utilities on AIX. There is a toolbox you can install, however, it's not the same versions as you would get in different Linux flavors.
Tab completion for files and Up arrow to re-run previous commands don't work out of the box without running a Korn shell. A small annoyance, but one that catches me every time!
AIX is robust, helps the systems administrator, is built to prevent easily made mistakes. If you are used to other variants of Unix (in particularly Linux) there is no steep learning curve to get started with AIX. You need to learn the intricacies of the operating system, but that is true for any new operating system. AIX has built-in tools for almost anything you want and has the AIX Toolbox (on the web) for tools that are not included with AIX by default, but can be installed. Installation of AIX is modular, you can select with components and features you want to have installed. Installation of additional components (and usually also removal of installed components) is easy and straight-forward.
I gave it 10 out of 10 because it allows me to do the work I need on a server, such as running a website and database, and making developments. In addition, thanks to its easy and useful interface during installation, it can be easily installed. In addition, thanks to its easily accessible documents, when a problem occurs, it can be solved easily and quickly.
We did not use the managed commercial support, but instead relied on community forums and official documentation. Ubuntu is very well documented across both instructional documentation from the developers themselves as well as informal support forums [ServerFault, YCombinator, Reddit]. It's easy enough to find an answer to any question you may have
IBM AIX operating system is advanced with most features and also it's more reliable unlike Redhat Linux, Sun solaris, HP-UX and also we will have well support from the vendor if we run into any issues. IBM AIX is more user-friendly when compared to linux and easy to use so i would prefer the customers to have their operating system as IBM AIX for companies who has more customers.
Windows 10: Expensive, with more security problems, more difficult to keep updated and less variety of free / open source applications. Its use encourages bad information security practices. OpenSuse Linux: A different distribution at source (Suse Linux), use of rpm packages (with fewer repositories and incompatible with Ubuntu Linux dpkg packages), and whose main objective is to be a "testing ground" for its paid version / professional, SUSE enterprise Linux.
Systems administration with Ubuntu is easy with little deep knowledge about it. Docs and community publications are great resources for any task you need to perform on any Ubuntu server and the organization can save several salaries of specialized sys admins in favor of more active roles.
Having been an Ubuntu user for many years personally, setting up new Ubuntu servers on my organization came with zero cost for me. I just deployed one instance from my hosting/cloud provider and started working right after it was running, no need to ask support or hire new staff for these tasks.
Replacing paid options with Ubuntu have also saved thousands of dollars on Windows Server licenses. I've migrated Windows/SQL Server based systems to Ubuntu/MySQL/PostgreSQL several times during my career and saved about USD 5000/year in licenses to many of them.
