While perusing the supported Linux distributions for Domino 7.0.1 I found the number to be in stark contrast to the number of distributions supported for DB2 UDB. According to the technote Domino 7.0.1 is only supported on 3 distributions while DB2 UDB is supported on 15 distributions! (To be fair DB2 UDB is only “recommended and validated” on 5 of the 15 distributions but still…)
Why the difference?
From the perspective of smaller installations the support of DB2 UDB on Ubuntu 5.04 is very nice since it together with DB2 UDB Express provides a almost no-cost entry into the world of DB2.
I’m with you on that. I should be getting a RHEL server in the next couple of weeks – figured I would pay for the OS to have support! Domino will run on other distributions, but IBM has to draw the line of support somewhere. I have a test server running Novell Linux Desktop and it works. But just think of how many distributions there are!
On the same token, you mention that DB2 runs on a lot more distros so why not Domino too?
I remember it has to do with some threading feature being present or not, this is also why BSD is not on the list.
Well I agree that IBM has to draw the line somewhere. I would just think that a company that IBM would standardize and support the same set of distributions across the product portfolio. From a customer standpoint you normally choose one distribution and run all your servers on that one – having to use different distributions for Domino, DB2 etc. is a hassle.
I guess that the distribution of choice for IBM customers will have to be SLES (SuSE) or RHEL (Redhat)…
Aha here is the reference:[link to 6&7 forum] IBM on ‘When will Redhat Linux Enterprise Server 3 be supported?’
It has to do with the epoll kernel API, which enables the use of Thread Pools instead of a Thread per Connection. This change of model might be one of the reasons we’ve seen the huge performance jumnp for Domino on Linux.