Enterprise LINUX migration.
 

Hello All,

I have a question and I was hoping if someone can help me out with it.

I am not a technical resource but a business resource who has previously worked on Windows upgrades and migrations but never on linux. My organization is looking to move the environment from AIX to LINUX OS. It is still in a brainstorming phase and I have been asked to present the idea to the corporate to get approval.

I do not know the complete source and target infrastructure and applications yet, but would be glad to furnish whatever details are required.

I am looking at around 100-150 AIX servers and SAP is the major application which is running on AIX, SAP is like 90% of our business. Apart from SAP there are few off the shelf and in house built applications. I am trying to understand what are the common issues/risks that I might come along (on a high-level view) and if possible can anyone share a project plan with me on a similar AIX to LINUX migration initiative. I want to study it to get a better understanding on what I am to expect and structure a plan similarly to present to the corporate, It doesn't have to be detailed, just the broad strokes on approximate timelines and required resources etc. If not a project plan, I would really appreciate if anyone can just help me understand the best approach and the kind of work I am looking at.

I apologize for such an ambiguous question, Please let me know if any detailed information is required I will try to furnish them as quickly as possible. Thanks in advance !!

I know that Red Hat has some good literature on migration from AIX (and other *NIX environments). A quick online search 'migration RH AIX' (and similar) will find this information for you from a corporate POV. They can even help you with the planning if/when the time comes. Check their online resources out. They're targeted to answer the sorts of questions/considerations you have.

An 'orthogonal' thought: personnel issues, current and future.
-Maybe- 'survey' the employees who have direct involvement with the *OS*,
and do a bit of a 'scan' of the local market for relevant OS expertise.
Just a thought, but good vs. bad [small] staff can make a HUGE difference!

Best wishes always. Welcome to LQ!

The advantage of Linux is: lower license costs and faster growth towards new technologies.
The downside is: frequent upgrades+reboots, perhaps causing application downtimes.
A cluster technology or a cloud technology like SAP HANA can reduce the application downtimes.
One detail: if you want to port shell scripts from AIX then ensure that Linux has got the original AT&T ksh - NOT the pdksh or mksh or lksh that I see on SuSE.

Utilizing a high availability setup with,.. for example,.. haproxy and nginx,.. along with a dev->staging->uat->prod promotion cycle should alleviate the need for downtimes and allow seemless upgrades and reboots.

If you're not a technical resource, how/why did you do Windows migrations in the past??? There are many, MANY things to consider doing this, and there isn't enough room on this site to accurately type them all in and answer them one by one. I do this sort of thing for a living, and *AM* a technical resource, and I can tell you the best thing to do for your client, is to hire someone locally who knows what questions to ask.

AIX is sort-of UNIX..running joke is that AIX stands for Ain't UNIX, but it's close. Many of the shell scripts that exist now may need tweaking, but crontabs and other such things should be pretty portable. Perl/ruby/python programs should also be pretty portable. You don't say anything about the hardware needs, what's existing, or how the upgrade will take place (forklift upgrade?? All old hardware out/new in, running in parallel to test? Staged upgrade?? Time frame?) Lots of IBM hardware may *ONLY* work with other IBM hardware...so tape libraries and other such things may also be on the 'got to get new' list.

Unless you know UNIX/Linux pretty well, you're already way behind in what questions need to be answered. Hire a local consultant to get this done, and do yourself a favor. It will reflect better on YOUR business by getting the correct expertise needed to do a professional job, and the client will be happier to recommend BOTH of you for a job well done. Trying to muddle through it will do everyone a disservice.

Chapter 3 offers some "high-level" and "broad strokes" of migrating to Linux.

Hope that helps.

As per posts #2 & #6, get professional advice.
Looking at your current base
you can't afford to do otherwise.

Also, definitely read up as much as you can on the web before you contact anyone in order to clarify your qns.
See eg https://www.redhat.com/en/services/consulting, where it says
Note the word "complimentary" there ;)

(and no I don't have any cxn to RH :) )