Linux taking aim at data center

NEW YORK - The improving scalability of Linux, the low cost and increasingly high power of Intel hardware, and the license-free nature of open source software could add up to big savings for large corporations looking to bolster their data centers.

Showgoers at this week's LinuxWorld Expo will find 150 vendors - including Computer Associates, Dell, HP, IBM and Sun - ready to stoke their interest in mission-critical Linux products. Roughly 17,000 attendees - about the same number as last year's show - are expected to descend upon Jacob K. Javits Center, according to show organizer IDG World Expo, a sister company of Network World.

Merrill Lynch has taken the plunge. The Wall Street firm uses Linux on Intel servers and IBM mainframes for Web and file servers as well as compute-intensive applications for analyzing financial markets. Robert Lefkowitz, director of the technology architecture group, says the lower cost of ownership for Linux on Intel hardware is one of the reasons Linux has gained a foothold in the company's data center.

"If you have an environment that has a lot of Unix, then switching to Linux makes sense," Lefkowitz says.

"What we like about [Linux] is the idea that there's a free market in software," he says, where customers are not tied to a particular vendor's architecture, support and pricing. "And when you have a free market, it tends to drive down costs."

At the show IBM will announce several server and enterprise software products, including a new eight-processor pSeries server - based on its PowerPC architecture - running native Linux, as well as a new rack-mountable eServer x345 box running Linux on Intel Xeon processors as fast as 2.8 GHz - the highest-speed Linux server IBM offers.

 Microsoft sizes up the penguin
While Microsoft's past attitude about Linux could be described as aloof or indifferent, the company has been more watchful of Linux as an enterprise competitor.

IBM will also announce a 40-node Linux server cluster that will run a DB2 database. The idea is to lower the cost and improve the uptime of large databases running on Linux IBM says.

In addition, IBM will introduce its Tivoli System Automation software for monitoring and managing individual Linux servers and clusters, as well as Linux client support for its browser-based Lotus iNotes groupware software.

Dell plans to announce a new configuration for its High Performance Computing Cluster (HPCC) Program with an offering of up to 132 PowerEdge 1655MC blade servers running Red Hat Linux in a single rack. The company also will showcase a 128-node cluster of PowerEdge 2650 servers running Red Hat and using high-speed interconnect technology from Myricom for supercomputing applications.

Other new Linux products expected at the show:

• Ximian will release Version 1.2 of Red Carpet Enterprise, an automatic Linux server patch and security updating system. The new version offers faster connectivity to the service through proxy firewalls and an improved roll-back function for undoing patches or software added to Linux systems through Red Carpet Enterprise.
  
  

• MetaLinx will have a version of its iSystem Enterprise system management software that the company says can "virtualize" management of Linux servers by controlling multiple Linux boxes as a single system. This could allow a smaller staff to control a large network of Linux nodes.
  
  

• To manage Linux instances running on a mainframe, Candle will introduce its Omegamon XE product for setting up, configuring and partitioning Linux servers on IBM's zServer and S/390 platforms.
  
  

Big businesses that have dabbled with Linux at the edge of the corporate network are looking to expand usage of the open source operating system. Some net executives say they'll be at LinuxWorld to see whether Linux is ready for data-center prime time.