Preferred OS for hosting Tomcat servlet container

Question

I know that I'm taking a risk, pitting the differing OS religions against each other, but I would like professional opinions about hosting a servlet container. In my case the container is set, we will be using Tomcat. But what is in question is the hosting operating system. We have administrators experienced in Windows Server 2003. We have developers experienced in Solaris, OSX, and Linux. There is no warring between these groups, just a question of who will ramp up through the learning curve necessary to use the OS that they are unfamiliar with. So given all the cooperative spirit, we are struggling with how to find the most efficient path.

I had already cross-posted this question here.

Answer 1

Have you thought about just using both? The beauty of Java is that developers can do their work on Linux or Mac OS X, and then you can deploy the production application to a Windows server. We do this internally (developers on Macs and production on Linux), and it works great.

The main thing to keep an eye on is to make sure that everyone's using the same version of Tomcat and the same version of Java.

Answer 2

I would recommend going with the OS you will get the most help with from outside your organization, should you need help. For Tomcat that would likely be Linux or Solaris. I maintain two Ubuntu Linux servers that serve Tomcat applications without any significant issues (I am not using the Tomcat or Java packages from the repositories). My opinion would be to avoid maintaining a production Tomcat server on either Windows or OSX. Seems like there would be more unknowns there.

Answer 3

Who is going to be (re)deploying your application on Tomcat? The answer to that question will likely inform your decision about which OS to use.

Cheers

Answer 4

Pick the OS that you can best support & secure.