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If just a couple years ago we'd told you Microsoft had tasked its sales force with selling SUSE Linux Enterprise and agreed to refrain from suing Novell customers for patent infringement, you'd check to see if you were reading the April 1 issue. But not only is the
Novell-Microsoft deal a reality, Oracle has made some bold statements about Unbreakable Linux. The operating system has gained hardware support from IBM, Hewlett-Packard and others, plus virtualization from VMware and XenSource. Myriad application-certification programs are emerging for SUSE and Red Hat, and we're even seeing increased ISV support, expanded subscription options and software choices for free distributions like Ubuntu. At a recent Gartner conference, 68 percent of attendees surveyed had at least part of their data centers running on Linux, and 84 percent planed on increasing expenditures.
Linux has not only arrived in the enterprise data center, it's unpacked, kicked some butt and claimed the top bunk.
"We aren't on a mission to eliminate Windows, just to find the right OS for each app," says David Daniels, director of technology for Aleris International, a recycler and maker of aluminum products. And often, Linux has filled the bill. In 2005, Aleris consolidated about 30 Lotus Notes servers down to 10 using SUSE Linux and VMware, and Daniels has been pleased: "Linux servers don't go down, they scale well, we don't have to continually patch them, they aren't affected by viruses, and they're secure. That translates to a lot of time we can spend on other things."
Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer for Juniper Networks, explains how the advanced technology is transforming operations.
Contact center leaders from 8x8, Awaken Intelligence, and 360insight discuss the importance of agent experience.
AI may force enterprises to rewire parts of their data centers so they are fully optimized to run such workloads. The question is do you use Ethernet or InfiniBand?
