Linux: Geek Icon is Making New Friends in the Boardroom
Written by: Anne Zieger
Only a few years ago, Linux was the ultimate hacker toy: free, stable, and flexible enough for bleeding-edge programmers, but far too much of a renegade for the corporate boardroom. With Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) operating systems dominating the hosting business and corporate datacenters, few techies got to work with Linux during the day, although many were spunky advocates for Linux use on their own time.
By the late 1990s, a growing number of system administrators boasted bumper stickers with clubby pro-Linux slogans or wore the iconic Linux penguin on t-shirts, and technology journals quietly began to publish articles looking at the benefits offered by this trendy OS (Operating System). Techies began loading Linux systems on obscure file and print servers, usually without asking permission.
Today, after years of persistent lobbying by system administrators, corporate maneuvering, and major investments by computing industry standard-setters, Linux is becoming an accepted operating system for corporate deployments. Sure, many companies are still in Windows-or-die mode, but many more cashed-starved players are hungry for the potential cost savings Linux offers.
As that happens, hosting providers are finding new ways to deploy this once-renegade operating system, most notably as the underpinning for a new generation of "vital" hosting services offering dedicated server-like options at shared server prices.
Other than a few hard-core Linux fanatics indulging in wishful thinking, no one expects Windows to disappear as an OS for hosting; however, Linux has become mainstream enough to be offered in the portfolio of most hosting providers. From renegade technology to a contender in only a few years ... Linux has come a long way.
"It used to be just for the network guy that happened to need a DNS server," says Paul Robertson, director of risk assessment for security firm TruSecure (www.trusecure.com), which researches corporate OS usage. "Now people are doing projects that are on the books and funded."
Corporate Acceptance
Corporate I.T. departments did not get interested in Linux until late 1999, as companies like Red Hat (www.redhat.com) and VA Linux (www.vasoftware.com) began to make a splash. At the time, the technology research firm Aberdeen Group (www.aberdeen.com) predicted 40 percent of enterprises would give Linux a try in 2000, mostly for print and file servers, or perhaps firewall implementation.
Around the same time, a handful of Web hosting companies began bringing Linux in-house. Rackspace Managed Hosting (www.rackspace.com), which got its start in early 1999, was especially Linux-friendly. The company, which targets small to midsize enterprises, began as a 100-percent Linux-based hosting service.
"We started focusing exclusively on Linux because I and two of the other founders were all Linux guys," says Dirk Elmendorf, chief technology evangelist for Rackspace. "But as we grew up, we realized that not only are we good at it, but also, for small and medium enterprises, it's easy to get into, low cost, and has a lot of technology built on it."
Over time, Linux has evolved into a solution popular not only with technology insiders like the Rackspace crew, but also corporate I.T. departments. This year, about three-quarters of businesses are working with Linux in some form, Aberdeen estimates. Although many are sticking with the file- or print-serving mode, more than a few are mounting major development projects on the Linux platform.
Moving to Linux is much easier, as most major software vendors - with the obvious exception of Microsoft - add Linux support for their key products and development tools. Developers hoping to base applications on Linux now have an increasingly robust list of options. Oracle (www.oracle.com) has transported its Oracle9i Database, Oracle9i Application Server, Oracle9i JDeveloper Java 2 Enterprise Edition, and XML (eXtensible Markup Language) development environments to Linux. BEA Systems' WebLogic application server (www.bea.com) and Sun Microsystems' iPlanet (www.sun.com) also ship versions running on at least one Linux platform.
Things have also picked up briskly for Linux on the server. Among its notable supporters is IBM (www.ibm.com), which has brought high-powered Linux capabilities to its zSeries 800 mainframe last year. More recently, Sun Microsystems launched a family of low-end, multipurpose x86 Linux systems, and expanded its line of Sun Cobalt Linux appliances. The Texas computing powerhouses, Dell Computer Corporation (www.dell.com) and Compaq (www.compaq.com), for their part, have been shipping Linux servers for some time.
Page
