Enterprise Unix Roundup: Grazing the Linux World Feast

We look forward to the bi-annual Linux World Expo (LWE) with much fondness. Twice a year we eagerly await the product announcements, acquisitions, and rallying of the troops that comes out of the show. Last August's LWE West saw the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 9, the first enterprise-class Linux offering to use the 2.6 kernel, Red Hat released its app server, and Sun, HP, and IBM each had their moments in the spotlight. Last year's LWE East had its share of excitement with Novell having just wrapped up its SUSE acquisition and the OSDL's opening the bank account for its defense fund.

So we are eagerly awaiting what will come out of next week's Boston-based show. The change in venue is certainly worth noting. After years of being held at the cavernous Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City LWE East is moving north to the much smaller Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Mass.

This week, we've had a number of meetings with vendors that will be attending the show. While the pre-show position jostling is the most we've seen, much of the information seems to be the benchmark-busting buzz variety. While we're not about to rule out any market transforming news breaking next week, we're not counting on it either. What we are counting on are many announcements about hardware and software vendors of varying size and market share now supporting Red Hat or SUSE on various servers or workstations, leaving us to ponder whether LWE is, in essence, turning into the Red Hat/Novell-and-Those-Who-Partner-With-Them show.

IBM's announcement earlier this week is also indicative of the evolving Linux landscape. Big Blue got a jump on the LWE zeitgeist with the announcement of a new low-end pSeries offering, the p5 510. The 64-bit, Power5-based server runs AIX 5L v5.3, SLES 9, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3, but what it's most notable for are the virtualization capabilities that come from the company's mainframe line.

The news is not so much about Linux and AIX being lumped together as it is about Virtualization Engine's capabilities. The technology enables each Power5 processor to run 10 virtual servers, making it possible for organizations to run several AIX and Linux servers on one system. Linux itself is not the solution; it is the conduit in which the real work gets done.

And that may explain why LWE is not the venue to learn about Earth-shifting paradigms in the operating system. As the operating system matures, choosing a Linux deployment is becoming less about the platform itself, and more about what the tools it integrates with are capable of doing. Not surprisingly, enterprise CIOs and hardware and application vendors are equally aware of this.

In Other News

» The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) announced the availability of Data Center Linux Capabilities version 1.1 (DCL 1.1) and the Carrier Grade Linux Requirements Definition 3.0 (CGL 3.0). The two documents provide guidance for developers and ISVs producing enterprise Linux solutions.

» Novell has certified mySAP Business Suite on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 (SLES 9). The certification extends to multiple platforms, including i386, ia64, EM64T, and IBM POWER and zSeries systems.

» Sun's Sun Fire V490s running Solaris 9 set a new world record for the SPECweb99_SSL benchmark, which measures secure Web and application serving performance. The Sun Fire systems beat out the previous record set by HP Integrity rx8620s running HP-UX 11i V2. The Sun Fire cluster sustained 10,700 "conforming connections" during the test, representing an 18 percent gain over HP's best.

» Looking for more info about Big Blue? The Hardware Today IBM Server Snapshot was updated this week. It overviews a big year for IBM with the introduction of the POWER5 processor (p5) and the IBM Virtualization Engine. In a nutshell: Big Blue is moving from concerns about how to push the tech to concentrating on server economics.

» Yellow Dog Linux reports that its latest release, version 4.0.1, includes support for the Mac mini and iMac G5's. A Debian developer similarly reports that "a recent CD-R of the new installer and a weak lemon drink are all one needs" to have Linux up and running on Apple's latest gear. Maybe a cluster of cheap, headless Mac minis is just what the enterprise Unix market needs.

» One of Unixdom's most venerable mascots, the FreeBSD beastie is due for an overhaul. The FreeBSD Project has announced a competition to design a new logo because "somebody may think [it] does not suit for the professional products to indicate that are using the FreeBSD inside." Well ... there have been misunderstandings.

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