The 10 Biggest Data Center Stories Of 2011

1. HP And Oracle Support IBM Unix By Pushing Their Own Self-Destruct Buttons

Despite all the major changes in data centers, Unix has been a constant in terms of key technologies. However, that stability was threatened in 2011 by a huge dispute between two of the three key Unix server and operating system vendors, Oracle and HP.

Oracle in March decided to stop supporting software development for HP's Itanium-based Unix servers. That touched off a seesaw of on-going lawsuits and countersuits as the two companies publicly battled over who said what in an agreement neither has made public.

That has led customers to look at their options, which include moving to Linux, keeping their existing infrastructure, or migrating to IBM, which in its last fiscal quarter became the largest server vendor by taking significant Unix share from HP and Oracle.

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