[6118] in Release_7.7_team
Draft1: Athena Desktop Solaris Sunset Announcement.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Cattey)
Fri Dec 12 14:03:29 2008
From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
To: owls@mit.edu
Cc: linux-ponder@mit.edu, release-team@mit.edu
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Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:03:49 -0500
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In writing the Athena 10 Spotlight article for the IS&T Newsletter, the
question of "Whither Solaris: came up.
It was originally suggested to include a sentence reminding people that
Solaris was going away. However, recognizing that MIT folk often do not
hear subtle announcements of de-support of their well-liked platform, I
expressed the concern that some would take our one sentence reminder as
a horrendous way to announce a decision they are hearing for the first
time.
To that end, I have crafted an Athena Desktop Solaris Sunset
announcement. The announcement, in my opinion needs 3 parts:
Rationale why we're doing this.
Timeline for when it happens.
What customers with a problem can do to get extra help.
Owls hasn't been meeting much lately, so I'm copying this to another
list, "linux-ponder" the folks who have begun talking about the MIT
Linux future. (I've also cc'd Release Team to keep the doers in the
loop of the strategists. :-) )
To you, the recipients of this note I have these questions:
1. Who is the right group to move this outreach forward?
2. What is the contact point for people to get extra help?
3. What revisions does the draft announcement need?
Sorry to open this can of worms and place it in your inbox, but it's
becoming clear to many that now is the time to deal with Solaris Sunset
for real.
-Bill Cattey
---- Begin Enclosure: Athena Desktop Solaris Sunset Announcement ----
Athena Desktop Solaris: Sunset
It is time to make explicit what many have been expecting for some time.
Desktop Athena Solaris is going away. This note provides the rationale
for taking the final step, the expected timeline, and where you can go
if this transition presents issues for you.
Rationale:
* The imperative to reduce Institute costs, is driving a complete
discontinuance of Athena Desktop Solaris support sooner rather than
later.
* Sun desktop hardware has been falling in popularity over time both at
the Institute and in the wider marketplace.
* Nearly all software available under Solaris is available on other
platforms, often at lower cost and with higher performance.
* To balance use of MIT resources, The Athena Release Team has focused
on the Linux future to the exclusion of Solaris legacy. Athena Desktop
Solaris has been in a mode of "Critical security, bugfix and Linux
feature sync" for the past 2 years.
* The Athena Hardware Renewal process has followed a policy of reducing
the Solaris Desktop footprint on campus for the past 3 years.
* To support current Sun Solaris SPARC desktop offerings would require
qualifying a new OS release and a re-engineering how Athena is installed
on Suns.
* Offering Solaris on x86 hardware appears to be of value to too small a
number of customers to justify the cost of institutionally qualifying
and then supporting new hardware and an OS.
* Offering support of a second platform beyond x86 Desktop Athena Linux
has costs that can be saved if the platform is fully de-commissioned.
Bottom Line: While IS&T recognizes that there are a few customers who
require desktop Solaris, it is no longer cost effective to support this
platform institutionally as an Athena platform. We're going to shut it
down.
Timeline:
When students arrive on campus in August 2009, there will be no Athena
Desktop Solaris systems in the Athena general use clusters.
July 1 2009 is the sunset date. On that date:
* IS&T will discontinue offering Athena Desktop Solaris updates.
* IS&T will begin removing the Solaris Desktop systems from general use
Athena clusters.
What this means to existing Athena Desktop Solaris customers:
* Solaris will not be available in Athena general use Clusters, so if
you teach with a Solaris only application, you need to migrate.
* Since IS&T will not be offering updates, Departments, Labs and Centers
with Athena Desktop Solaris systems will need either to migrate off
Solaris, or to develop their own system update procedures.
Where to go if this transition presents issues:
Because this is part of the larger institute efforts to reduce costs,
IS&T will be unable to provide development resources to create or
migrate Solais-unique applications. However we have expertise that may
be of value as you transition to an off-the-shelf work-alike.
<We need to create a contact point for hand holding here. Faculty
Liaison would have done it in the past, but their charter is now
different.>
