Beak Performance

Linux is no more plodding the lonely road. For years, tabulating its hazy

footprint across the Indian enter prise-where often, no all-encompassing trend

of adoption was visible-was like trying to find the proverbial needle in an

often imaginary haystack. Nevertheless, Linux votaries and business evangelists

have slogged to see that the Force remains with an operating system which is yet

to shake off comparisons with Windows and the immeasurable burden of a few

thousand versions.

The Linux revolution is still imperceptible to the majority of end-users. Yet

it is beginning to be strongly felt, and is now being acknowledged, even in the

domestic market. Governments from West Bengal to Munich to Dalian and corporates

from Hindustan Lever to Credit Suisse First Boston, are implementing Linux

seriously, not to mention the growingly open-source-savvy Indian states of

Maharashtra, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Pondicherry and Uttaranchal.

Linux

is certainly happening. In fact, it has moved to the next level, thanks to the

blessing of the likes of IBM, Sun and HP amongst other vendors. Before we jump

to where Linux is in the Indian enterprises, let's talk numbers. Globally the

situation is not very different. And every major research agency speaks the same

language.

Zone-h.org's Web server intrusions study showed that except for the period between August 2003 and November 2003, the Linux family was far more attacked than the Windows family of operating systems though all the notoriety is pinned to the latter, by default, it may appear

While IDC pegs the Linux growth rate at 38% for Q2 2004 y-o-y, Gartner puts

the growth rate at 57.1% for Linux-based servers against a 27% growth for the

overall market for Q104. Even Linux in India has shown a heady growth rate of

80% in the x86 space and about 82% in overall market for Q2. Globally, Oracle

holds the largest market share for Linux-at 69%-and the highest annual

growth rate of 360%, outpacing all other commercial databases, according to

Gartner-Dataquest's May 2004 report. And with more than 9,000 developers

creating Oracle products on Linux, Oracle could soon become the largest

Linux-based development organization worldwide.

Intel economics, in combination with Linux platforms, has been a strong

selling point for IBM and HP Linux servers in India. Today Linux is available on

all hardware platforms ranging from mainframes to Intel servers, but the most

popular enterprise offerings are often confined to companies like IBM, Oracle,

and SAP, claim industry sources. This arises from their capabilities to port

most SMB applications onto Linux, according to Jyoti Satyanathan, general

manager, Linux (ASEAN and South Asia), for IBM. "These enterprises have

succeeded in using the multiplicity of Linux to their advantage with the

availability of thousands of open source software available to do most of the

peripheral applications like printfile, firewall and Web serving,"

Satyanathan says.

According to him, the heaviest investors in Linux are banks for their

branches, telcos for value-added services, industries for data analysis, design

and development, and the SMB segment for lowering investment costs.

As CIOs continue to move beyond the "Linux on mail server" syndrome

increased application support from the big hardware vendors is swinging the

pendulum northward. "The larger hardware vendors have experience in Linux

implementation across the world on a wide variety of platforms and this is seen

by Indian enterprises as translating into a lower risk factor. Besides,

customers often prefer single-point hardware and apps support to reduce roll-on

costs of a Linux implementation," says Pravir Ganguly, founder consultant

of tech research firm Access Media International. According to Thomas Kurian,

senior vice-president, Oracle Server Technologies. "Linux is far ahead from

the point of view of incorporating security imperatives in the database

layer."

So while pure-play software vendors are helping in geting the Linux boat

going, Linux advocates should thank the big hardware vendors for adding the

necessary power boosters. And the reason is not far to fathom. It is the

stronger sales team of the large vendors which has helped. However, there is a

flip side to all good things.

Humble Beg-Innings In 1990, Finnish computer science student Linus Torvalds turned Minix, a popular classroom teaching tool, into Linux. Linux is closer to the real Unix, which explains its widespread use in servers. Torvalds created the kernel, and most of the supporting applications and utilities came from the GNU project of the Free Software Foundation. Many programmers have contributed to the Linux/GNU system.  As for the pronunciation of the word, if you lived in Finland, you would say “lee-nooks,” because Linus is pronounced “lee-noose”. Since the English pronunciation of Linus is “line-iss,” many call it “line-icks.” More common is “lynn-icks,” which splits the difference, without emphasizing the “X”. No matter how you say it, Linux continues to grow rapidly.

Says Abhijit Das, manager (platform strategies) with Microsoft, as he

launches into the archetypal anti-Linux pitch, "Linux consolidation is

imperative, while cost of acquisition, maintenance and support continues to be

high. As for upgrades on Linux, you will end up looking beyond it, anyway."

Microsoft persists in insisting that the notion of Linux dominates over any

action here.

Mail Server Glues



It's not that the critics are carping, or totally wrong on Linux adoption

patterns. Linux and its hordes of doppelgangers are yet to graduate beyond the

mail server in over 70% of installations worldwide, estimate industry sources.

While the number of servers using Linux has increased worldwide, companies like

Bennett & Coleman have not pushed Linux beyond sundry mail server

functionalities. "Over the past 2-3 years from the time when we first

installed Linux on our mail server, things have worked out fine," says

Venkat Bhat, senior systems engineer with the Bennett & Coleman Group. The

company's flagship publication, The Times of India, has even hosted its

Intranet on the Linux server over the past two years. But in a move typical of

the Indian enterprise, the daily jive of managing key organizational data and

processing continues to be performed on a "reliable" and engagingly

familiar Windows Unix dance floor.

A Lot of Server



Linux vendors down the years have been very innovative in mirroring and

building on Windows' successes and attempting to eradicate its failures.

Worldwide, as a function of the open source mindset to innovate beyond

boundaries, the process is, too often, visibly Windows-conscious. For example, a

Linux appliance from Net Integration Technologies (www.nitix.com) packs an

amazing amount of services into a small box. Running the Nitix OS, it includes

built-in Web, e-mail, VPN and remote access servers, a firewall and file and

print services for Windows, Mac and Linux networks. Its three Ethernet ports are

used to connect two ISPs to the LAN and provide automatic fail-over if one of

the connections goes down. This is a case where Nitix has sought to match

Windows proficiencies in server scanning and strong server side APIs.

Another example is an enterprise instant messaging gateway from FaceTime

Communications announced three months ago which combines Windows-based policy

control and proxy servers with a Linux-based appliance for instant messaging and

peer-to-peer monitoring and blocking.

The thrust into the Indian enterprise is being fuelled by the encouraging

response, claim Linux vendors, who are focusing their efforts on increasing user

awareness, market development and partnering activities. Novell has announced

the release of its 9.2 version of SUSE Linux Professional priced at about Rs

4,000 in India.

Talk of opening more Windows into the developer consciousness. Novell's

SUSE Linux Professional 9.2 includes new features like improved WLAN support and

configuration with Wi-Fi technologies like Centrino, line-of-sight IrDA and

Bluetooth support, as well as leading open source graphical desktop environments

like KDE and GNOME. "Disruption through Innovation" has been a popular

Linux credo, as much as it is with the services companies. But pricing, support

and upgrade costs continue to be an issue. While Linux has been easily adopted

on the server side, desktop continues to be Microsoft monopoly. On the

enterprise side, where piracy is a non issue, adoption has been slow and sparse.

While Sun Microsystem claims to have major wins with the JDS system in

organizations like National Insurance Company, we are yet to see huge

deployments of this nature.

Kramer vs Kramer



The open source market grew significantly during the past two years, but

concerns about service capabilities-mainly maintenance and support-still

blight adoption. The market will grow only if specific open source products,

such as Linux, JBoss, Eclipse, or Tomcat, become parallel technology standards,

say experts. This is already happening to a great extent.

A much-overlooked phenomenon is that while Linux has become the catchphrase

when one talks of open source, applications like the Apache Web server, the

Sendmail mail server, JBoss application server and JSP (Java Server Page)

conversion tools like Tomcat have often been more successful. Apache proponents

claim that it holds an 85% market share of the Internet server market, where

Linux is still struggling to gain traction against Microsoft. The scope of open

source technologies in consulting services could extend to even embedded Linux,

distributed architecture design and managed migration to open source operating

systems with some help from the large hardware vendors.

However on the Linux front itself, the current milestone for Linux is its

growing emergence as a key database management platform. "When Linux is

shipped as part of a suite with appropriate support built into the license, as

Oracle is doing, it is hugely reliable," says Gopi Kumar Bulusu, CEO of

Sankhya Technologies. "We run Oracle on RedHat, and even deliver our DMS

solution on Linux."

Right now, a strengthening software innovation network riding on the deep

pockets of hardware vendors, ISVs and independent software developers alone

cannot proliferate Linux across the Indian enterprise, observers note, in the

absence of guarantees for reliability, RoI and TCO. Or solve the problem of how

much to use and when to use.

Proviso: Linux's keys to the datacenter kingdom presently dangle from the

concentric rings of consistent performance/support/maintenance track records,

customer insight and realization of top-of-the-mind trust, stronger

technobranding, massclusivity (a combination of customizability and exclusivity)

and niche solutions beyond Windows. Time, converging market interests and strong

vendor leaderships will tell the rest of the tale.

Ravi Menon in Bangalore

Faith, Hope and Linux

Clocking over 100% y-o-y growth, specialist vendors like RedHat have worked

towards making mission-critical Linux deployments possible. The vast benefits of

open source computing in an enterprise environment where cost-effective

performance is absolutely critical, will come home, affirms Javed Tapia,

director, Red Hat India, in a conversation with Ravi Menon of Dataquest:

Right now, who are the heaviest enterprise investors in Linux in India?



Linux can be adopted across segments-government, enterprise and education.

In India, we have seen large scale adoptions in government and the BFSI segment.

Some of Linux customers include IDBI Bank, Maharashtra Land Records, BSNL,

Indian Railways Catering & Tourism Corporation, Eveready Industries and UTI

Bank.

Our estimates suggest that annually, 25% of servers shipped in India run on

Linux. We expect this to go up to 30% in the coming two years. Similarly, of the

total desktops shipped annually, over 2 lakh run on the Linux operating system.

We expect this number to double in the next two years.

How should firms refine their vendor selection criteria to benefit from

lower-cost open source solutions?



Once an enterprise decides to use open source technology, the CIO needs to

evaluate the vendor on the following parameters-commitment to open source

software and platform, industry relationship with OEM and ISV vendors, ability

to provide direction and vision for adoption and co-existence of applications.

The vendor should also have the ability to scale up, financial strength, and

industry acceptance, not to mention, ability to provide services encompassing

all the enterprise needs like consulting, implementation, engineering and

training. Obviously, the key differential while evaluating adoption of open

source software is that the service provider is more important than the

products. Enterprises require comprehensive technology integration. All the

pieces need to fit.

A Microsoft-sponsored BearingPoint study in May 2004 said that Windows

Server 2003 is less expensive than commercial versions of Linux. Your take.



Well, this TCO study used Microsoft pricing that was discounted 80% from

list price. Is this really the typical discount that business customers can

expect to receive from Microsoft?

Besides, these studies don't include savings from the ability to

consolidate servers that the superior performance and stability of Linux offers

over Windows. Typical migrations have shown that applications that required

multiple Windows servers to operate could be consolidated onto fewer Linux

servers.

And, these studies don't include the savings from reduced administration

costs in supporting a Linux server environment as opposed to a Windows

environment.

The Penguin's New Claw

Asianux has been developed to accelerate Linux adoption among enterprises and increase Linux market share in enterprise systems. The Red Flag-Miracle Linux partnership has identified three major areas of focus-the server operating environment, joint customer support, and desktop operating systems. 

On January 7, 2004, two of Asia's largest Linux distributors in China and Japan forged a partnership to jointly develop low-cost, reliable and secure Linux solutions for the Asian market. Six months later, China's Red Flag Software, and Japan's Miracle Linux Corporation (jointly owned by Oracle, NEC, Otsuka-shokai and others), commercially launched Asianux, the first and only standardized Linux operating environment for organizations in Asia.

The goal for this partnership is to provide one common Linux server operating environment with highly reliable professional support services in local languages to customers entering the Chinese and Japanese markets. The secondary goal is to considerably reduce Independent Hardware Vendors (IHV) and Independent Software Vendors (ISV) efforts by certifying their products and services on one Linux platform for both Chinese and Japanese distributions. 

IDC Asia/Pacific expects the Linux server and client operating systems market in China will more than double to $41.9 mn by 2008.