Linux stays hot as an overall server and database server platform

The popularity continues to grow for Linux as an enterprise server operating system, as well as a platform for running large database servers.

Gartner recently announced that Linux was the fastest growing overall server platform in the first quarter of 2004. It was also the fastest server platform in terms of database software licensing. IBM was the leader in Linux server revenue for the quarter, followed by HP and Dell.

Linux server revenue rose 57% in the first quarter of this year, while Unix sales were down slightly by 2.3%. The number of servers sold worldwide increased overall by 27.1% to 1.57 million units, according to the analyst firm.

Gartner says the move comes as a result of enterprises turning to Linux as an alternative server platform for older Unix systems. There is no large displacement of Windows servers for Linux, the analyst firm says.

One of the hottest applications for Linux is on RDBMS servers, which run as the database engines for most enterprise applications and Web sites. According to Gartner, Linux was the fastest growing platform for RDMBS in 2003. New server licenses for Linux-based RDMBS software rose to $299.3 million in 2003, which is an increase of 158% from the year before. Oracle was the leader in the Linux RDBMS market with 69.1% of Linux database licenses sold. IBM was second with in the Linux RDBMS market with 28.5%, down from 57.6% a year before.