ZDNet: Linux and AIX link up on IBM’s biggest Unix server

“This year’s operating system breakthrough is to have
both Linux and IBM’s own AIX Unix flavour running natively in their
own partitions, instead of running a hosted Linux as with last
year’s AIX 5L. Logical partitioning consolidates workloads more
efficiently, and a programme called eLiza is intended to make
servers self-healing, and all but self-sufficient.

Having slated other suppliers for the multiplicity of their
Unixes, the IBM team then had to explain how AIX is positioned
alongside Linux. As you might expect they both have their place:
AIX is tunable while Linux is customisable, AIX offers performance
and Linux is cheap, and so on. However the plans showed the two
getting closer, as IBM ‘accelerates the maturation’ of Linux, and
adds Linux-like features to AIX.

The big question is whether AIX will eventually disappear, and
here IBM’s answer has echoes of Tony Blair’s policy on the pound:
‘AIX could go away. It might go in five years, or ten years, or
never,’ said Colin Grocock, eServer business development manager.
‘It will be driven by application vendors and customers.'”

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