{"id":1287,"date":"2017-02-28T11:14:54","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T16:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news?p=1287&preview=true&preview_id=1287"},"modified":"2024-07-08T06:06:33","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T10:06:33","slug":"decommissioning-of-aix-servers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/2017\/02\/28\/decommissioning-of-aix-servers\/","title":{"rendered":"AIX decommissioning saves time, reduces costs"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"PhotoFor U-M students, faculty, and staff, hardware that supports databases and application servers is, as it should be, a hidden part of the \u201cplumbing\u201d of the systems and applications they use. Though hidden, this underlying structure is a critical part of IT service delivery. Without diligent care, maintenance, and updates of hardware and operating systems, the performance and security of the U-M IT enterprise would deteriorate and the cost of services for the university could be prohibitively high.
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Decommissioning the AIX operating system is one example of how ITS innovatively approached infrastructure updates. AIX, IBM\u2019s proprietary UNIX operating system, had reliably supported administrative systems, student registration, and U-M payroll for almost two decades. In the meantime, ITS started adopting a newer, open source Linux-based operating system that allows for more flexible, lower-cost hardware purchases, and ensures technology expertise is up-to-date and readily available. ITS was also looking for ways to optimize support of Oracle enterprise databases.<\/span><\/p>\n

ITS decommissioned AIX hardware after migrating close to 100 databases and 200 application servers<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n

These factors led to the decision in 2012 to migrate U-M enterprise Oracle databases from the AIX platform to the Oracle Exadata engineered system and move remaining applications to the Linux operating system and virtual server infrastructure. To minimize disruption to U-M academic and administrative operations, this carefully planned effort took more than three years. In January 2017, ITS decommissioned AIX hardware after migrating close to 100 databases and 200 application servers, realizing the following benefits:<\/span><\/p>\n