[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
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Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
I was born in the late 90s so by the time I got involved in
technology, my introduction to Unix and Unix-flavored systems was
limited to Linux and MacOS. However, I've read about the history of
Unix at Bell Labs, the BSD systems derived from research Unix, and
the eventual commercial releases of Unix System V from AT&T
themselves. I also see that HP-UX, AIX, and Solaris are apparently
still maintained and get releases, which suggests that they are
still being used in production in some places. I'm curious if
anyone here currently works (or has very recently worked) somewhere
where proprietary Unix is still used for production. If so, can you
tell me what they're used for and why those deployments haven't
been moved to an appropriate Linux distribution? Not suggesting
Linux is necessarily better for all use cases, just wondering what
keeps these small number of entities clinging to closed-source Unix
with presumably pricey license costs.
Author : wassenaar10
Score : 32 points
Date : 2022-12-16 18:07 UTC (4 hours ago)
| bb88 wrote:
| > I also see that HP-UX, AIX, and Solaris are apparently still
| maintained and get releases, which suggests that they are still
| being used in production in some places.
|
| When I worked for $(LargeDefenseContractor) we used Solaris for a
| defense system we were developing. Over time the older units
| (based on older hardware) would be passed down to the national
| guard. I would not be surprised if Solaris was still being used
| in obscure places in the military.
|
| Solaris 7 was a pretty awesome OS as I recall, but pretty soon
| Intel and AMD started supporting linux as a workable OS option
| for their server chips. Then linux on the cloud took off and the
| rest is history.
| colechristensen wrote:
| In '05-10 timeframe we had a selection of Sun machines around the
| engineering department running various software and were even
| evaluating new Sun hardware for file servers when ZFS was new.
|
| Later on in eh, 2015 or so I worked at a company providing backup
| software that was tested and worked with every niche unix
| hardware under the sun. Usually to support large legacy
| industrial companies, think defense, materials, etc. who still
| used the hardware.
|
| Banks will also use these things mostly for legacy reasons. The
| software got written once and has been working and validated for
| decades, no reason to rewrite it for a different OS just because.
|
| Price is usually not a major factor when compared to the size of
| the business and number of employees.
| stcroixx wrote:
| I worked on a system deployed on AIX for a few years. We used it
| to distribute batch workloads in parallel across a cluster of
| machines - no other software and OS did such a thing, maybe still
| doesn't. The machines themselves were PowerPC RS6000's which only
| ran AIX. The company already had a close relationship with IBM
| because they'd been running mainframes for decades. They made
| tons of money so saving money on licence costs was not important.
| brundolf wrote:
| Not proprietary, but Oxide Computer uses a niche (open source)
| Unix called illumos: https://illumos.org/
| kjs3 wrote:
| Illumos is open source Solaris.
| bcantrill wrote:
| illumos has a Solaris heritage, certainly -- but has evolved
| quite a bit in the last ~12 years. For details of the
| history, see my LISA 2011 talk.[0]
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc
| sarahdellysse wrote:
| Back when I worked at OmniTI (from like 2015 to 2017), we had an
| in-house Illumos nee Solaris distro for cloud servers named
| OmniOS. I didn't use it too much myself as it was somewhat legacy
| but all the other devs who used it for prod debugging loved all
| the dtrace/zfs stuffs on it.
| ilc wrote:
| I wouldn't call that proprietary. It was freely available, and
| I worked with it for a bit, until switching that project to
| SmartOS, which is also... not proprietary.
|
| Both were excellent systems to work on in dev and prod.
| PreInternet01 wrote:
| Yup. SCO OpenServer 5.0.something, for some partner's accounting
| department. Neither the OS nor the application software have been
| updated since the late 1990s, but if it works, it works, I
| guess... (to be honest: the application software is only used to
| run reports in response to requests from the legal department,
| but apparently still can't be shut down -- I ask once a year,
| next upcoming 'query date' in my agenda is March 2023).
|
| This used to run on a Compaq Proliant server (huge noisy Intel
| 486 tower) until the end of the millennium or so, then was
| converted into a VM. First on VMware, then on Hyper-V, where it
| has been running comfortably on various hardware (Intel Dell
| PowerEdge, AMD SuperServer) since.
|
| Access is the biggest issue, as the OS only supports telnet, and
| serial access. So ever since this has been converted to a VM, it
| runs on a dedicated VLAN (666, just to make sure nobody ever
| misunderstands the true evil underneath...), with an AD-
| authenticating-HTTPS-to-Telnet bridge (coded up in Visual
| Basic.NET using some long-long-deprecated libraries) connecting
| it to the outside world.
|
| That VB.NET kludge was recently upgraded to .NET 6, in order to
| get TLS 1.2 support. This was surprisingly uneventful, and I'm
| pretty sure this abomination gets to live another decade or so.
|
| Ah, yes, a career in IT... Always on the forefront of cutting-
| edge tech...
|
| (Later edit to, like, actually answer the question: licensing
| costs are nonexistent: SCO is gone anyway, and we don't require
| any support/updates. Migrating to Linux might be an option, but
| is most likely going to be _hugely_ painful, and the existing VM
| scenario Just Works for everyone involved. Security and such is
| not a real issue: only a handful of internal users have highly-
| restricted access via a proxy)
| dcminter wrote:
| Will it all blow up in 2038? Do you have a plan (to kill it,
| upgrade it, or retire) if so? :)
| mepian wrote:
| Allied Irish Banks is still using Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX at the
| same time, according to a job posting I've seen.
| matt3210 wrote:
| I use mac which is a proprietary unix.
| TGRush wrote:
| Technially, the Darwin Kernel it uses is OSS
|
| https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu
| EnigmaCurry wrote:
| Can you actually recompile your kernel on Mac? And its
| functional?
|
| I'll bet this isn't even the source code Apple uses, but
| rather they have a private fork with extra patches (similar
| to how Microsoft publishes OSS VS Code, but then uses their
| own proprietary version for releases).
| my123 wrote:
| Yes. However, many kernel modules needed to boot on a
| modern macOS machine are proprietary.
| cafard wrote:
| A friend has his own computer business, and some of his work
| involves tending to AIX systems. I don't remember now what his
| AIX customers use their machines for, but one might have been a
| biology lab.
| rqmedes wrote:
| Yep, SCO Unix that hasn't been up dated in forever for a 1990's
| text based ERP system
| brozaman wrote:
| Not myself directly, but about 5 years ago I was doing some work
| for one space agency and there were some Solaris clusters which
| were older than me.
|
| I'm pretty certain most if not all are still running.
| fffrantz wrote:
| Yep, still running Solaris 11 on a Sun server for SDH/SONET
| network management. I mean it fits the bill, since both
| technologies are now ancient.
|
| I can't say bad things about the whole Sun/Solaris combo though.
| It's rock solid and requires practically no maintenance
| whatsoever.
|
| Also, since it's completely off the internet, it's not like it
| could be compromised in any way.
| spydum wrote:
| Yeah internal networks never get breached /s
| garbagecoder wrote:
| Not for almost 20 years. HIGP/SOEST used SunOS.
| kjs3 wrote:
| We have a number of financial services apps running on Solaris.
| The cost of the licenses and hardware is insignificant compared
| to the cost of porting those apps to something else. You'll find
| that as the reason most folks stay on these platforms.
|
| We also apparently still have some AIX, but I'm not sure what it
| supports. AIX is still somewhat popular in financial services;
| probably others as well.
|
| I know of a couple large HP/UX shops left.
| hxugufjfjf wrote:
| I've seen huge AIX installations maintained on contract by IAM at
| financial institutions.
| [deleted]
| orangesite wrote:
| Not since 2002. Irix, HP/UX, Solaris.
|
| Correction: It has been pointed out to me that I'm currently
| using macOS which, Darwin non-withstanding, is technically a
| proprietary UNIX.
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(page generated 2022-12-16 23:01 UTC)