At my company, we don't even consider Ubuntu as a viable server platform. It's RHEL/CentOS for just about everything.
As you mentioned, the LTS Ubuntu versions are really not on the same level as the stable RHEL releases and support that is provided.
Yes, Ubuntu is very popular... in both the Desktop and Server arena (mostly catalyzed by EC2 making Ubuntu the default Linux image, even though EC2 is built out of RHEL/CentOS boxes). However, most "big metal" servers are RHEL/CentOS or something else.
In any event (and distro-fany-boyism aside ;-) ... one has to question the change from Debian Stable to Ubuntu LTS. The only thing I can think of, is they wanted a more "proper" company to call up for support... even though Debian are the guys Ubuntu calls up when they need support.
At the end of the day, my 2 cents would be to get a distro that focuses on being a server distro first and forthright, not a distro that is a jack-of-all-trades.
It's weird also, given that spotify were pushing systemd[0] hard, shuttleworth[1] conceded - but the version of LTS Ubuntu 14.04 [2] that spotify switched to is on Upstart.
RHEL 7 (and now CentOS 7) has native Docker support built in... seems that would have been a good choice of distro if they were looking for good, long term Docker support.
As you mentioned, the LTS Ubuntu versions are really not on the same level as the stable RHEL releases and support that is provided.
Yes, Ubuntu is very popular... in both the Desktop and Server arena (mostly catalyzed by EC2 making Ubuntu the default Linux image, even though EC2 is built out of RHEL/CentOS boxes). However, most "big metal" servers are RHEL/CentOS or something else.
In any event (and distro-fany-boyism aside ;-) ... one has to question the change from Debian Stable to Ubuntu LTS. The only thing I can think of, is they wanted a more "proper" company to call up for support... even though Debian are the guys Ubuntu calls up when they need support.
At the end of the day, my 2 cents would be to get a distro that focuses on being a server distro first and forthright, not a distro that is a jack-of-all-trades.