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By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
October 24, 2003
WASHINGTON, D.C.-I'm sitting here at the Linux Enterprise Forum. Around me
are about 350 attendees, half from the government, half from the corporate
world; half with technical titles, half with management titles. But it
seems they all share the belief that Linux is the enterprise operating
system of today, not tomorrow.
These people do not have the religious zeal of Linux fans; they are serious
people doing serious work, and they have either already deployed Linux in
their enterprise or they're about to. And don't mistake me: These are not
executives and techs who are merely putting Linux on the edge of their
enterprise as Web servers. They are not people who are simply deploying
Linux as a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) or file/print servers
with Samba. No, these are people deploying Linux at the heart of their
agencies or companies.
And why shouldn't they? Oracle (you know Oracle) is taking everything, and
I mean everything, it has from the core servers to the desktop to Linux.
Now look at Oracle's customers. Amazon.com runs its shopping carts off
Oracle on Linux. You want to talk mission-critical? What could be more
business mission-critical? If Amazon's shopping carts stop working, not
only are thousands of customers inconvenienced but the entire world knows
that the biggest Internet retailer of all has had a major foul-up.
It's not just the private sector that has already made the jump to Linux.
Federal agencies and contractors are also already there. This group's
questions aren't about how Linux would work for them; they're about how to
make Linux work better for them. It's to find out exactly HP's plans are
for open source and Linux. It's to talk to IBM representatives about DB2
clustering on Linux. It's to ask about problems with a particular Oracle
configuration on Red Hat Enterprise Server.
Get the idea? This isn't a show trying to convince CEOs, CIOs and CTOs of
the advantages of Linux (although there's a lot of programming for those
folks). This is a show filled with CEOs, CIOs and CTOs who already get that
Linux has a home in the heart of the enterprise.
Maybe it's just me, but this strikes me as an important sea change. I've
written oodles of stories about how Linux is almost ready for the
enterprise and about how Linux can be used in the enterprise or how this
one company is using Linux in the enterprise. But this time around, I'm
seeing not just a few technical people with one or two executives who
understand that Linux can be at the core of their businesses. I'm seeing a
small show full of people who already have, or are about to have, Linux in
the core.
It is, I must say, a rather exciting experience. I'm used to hearing people
who love Linux telling me how wonderful its technology is or how great it
is at the department or on the business network edge. I'm not used to
people telling me how they love what Linux is doing for their business
infrastructure.
I know, however, I'll be hearing a lot more of this.
Business Linux has had many steps up over the years. First, it was embraced
by ISPs as a Web server platform. Then it started getting used by bleeding
edge businesses. And then people started using it as a departmental file
and print server. After that, the major DBMSs moved to it; as Linux expert
Jon "maddog" Hall said at the show, "When I saw the DBMS moving to Linux, I
knew Linux would be a success." And more recently, I've seen IBM and HP
embrace Linux as their own. I've seen technical support for Linux go from
"How-to" files to the kind of 24/7 coverage that an enterprise expects from
its software vendors. In short, I saw broad enterprise Linux acceptance
coming.
Today, Linux arrived. For the first time I can say that Linux, just as much
as Solaris, Windows 2000, HP/UX OS/400 or AIX, is a mainstream enterprise
operating system. The day was long in coming, but it's here. This isn't
just my opinion; this is a business fact.
October 24, 2003
WASHINGTON, D.C.-I'm sitting here at the Linux Enterprise Forum. Around me
are about 350 attendees, half from the government, half from the corporate
world; half with technical titles, half with management titles. But it
seems they all share the belief that Linux is the enterprise operating
system of today, not tomorrow.
These people do not have the religious zeal of Linux fans; they are serious
people doing serious work, and they have either already deployed Linux in
their enterprise or they're about to. And don't mistake me: These are not
executives and techs who are merely putting Linux on the edge of their
enterprise as Web servers. They are not people who are simply deploying
Linux as a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) or file/print servers
with Samba. No, these are people deploying Linux at the heart of their
agencies or companies.
And why shouldn't they? Oracle (you know Oracle) is taking everything, and
I mean everything, it has from the core servers to the desktop to Linux.
Now look at Oracle's customers. Amazon.com runs its shopping carts off
Oracle on Linux. You want to talk mission-critical? What could be more
business mission-critical? If Amazon's shopping carts stop working, not
only are thousands of customers inconvenienced but the entire world knows
that the biggest Internet retailer of all has had a major foul-up.
It's not just the private sector that has already made the jump to Linux.
Federal agencies and contractors are also already there. This group's
questions aren't about how Linux would work for them; they're about how to
make Linux work better for them. It's to find out exactly HP's plans are
for open source and Linux. It's to talk to IBM representatives about DB2
clustering on Linux. It's to ask about problems with a particular Oracle
configuration on Red Hat Enterprise Server.
Get the idea? This isn't a show trying to convince CEOs, CIOs and CTOs of
the advantages of Linux (although there's a lot of programming for those
folks). This is a show filled with CEOs, CIOs and CTOs who already get that
Linux has a home in the heart of the enterprise.
Maybe it's just me, but this strikes me as an important sea change. I've
written oodles of stories about how Linux is almost ready for the
enterprise and about how Linux can be used in the enterprise or how this
one company is using Linux in the enterprise. But this time around, I'm
seeing not just a few technical people with one or two executives who
understand that Linux can be at the core of their businesses. I'm seeing a
small show full of people who already have, or are about to have, Linux in
the core.
It is, I must say, a rather exciting experience. I'm used to hearing people
who love Linux telling me how wonderful its technology is or how great it
is at the department or on the business network edge. I'm not used to
people telling me how they love what Linux is doing for their business
infrastructure.
I know, however, I'll be hearing a lot more of this.
Business Linux has had many steps up over the years. First, it was embraced
by ISPs as a Web server platform. Then it started getting used by bleeding
edge businesses. And then people started using it as a departmental file
and print server. After that, the major DBMSs moved to it; as Linux expert
Jon "maddog" Hall said at the show, "When I saw the DBMS moving to Linux, I
knew Linux would be a success." And more recently, I've seen IBM and HP
embrace Linux as their own. I've seen technical support for Linux go from
"How-to" files to the kind of 24/7 coverage that an enterprise expects from
its software vendors. In short, I saw broad enterprise Linux acceptance
coming.
Today, Linux arrived. For the first time I can say that Linux, just as much
as Solaris, Windows 2000, HP/UX OS/400 or AIX, is a mainstream enterprise
operating system. The day was long in coming, but it's here. This isn't
just my opinion; this is a business fact.