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Linux moves up

FEBRUARY 1999

Linux: Back Door To the Front Office

Industry pundits say Linux is about to take off in the enterprise. IT administrators will tell you it already has.

IT staffers have been quietly deploying Linux--either discreetly because upper management hasn't approved it or as an emergency fix to a problem.

In either case, the open-source operating system is now peppered throughout many major enterprise networks--and is picking up steam against commercial Unix variants and Windows NT--because of its performance and flexibility.

Announcements slated for Comdex in Las Vegas this week will only bolster Linux backers' position. Red Hat Software Inc. will announce new around-the-clock enterprise support for its Linux users. The service, due next year, will include various levels of support and pricing models, according to sources close to Red Hat, in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

Meanwhile, Linux developer Pacific HiTech Inc. will detail a support service, also due next year, that will combine its own call centers with third-party systems integrators to offer 24-by-7 support on the company's TurboLinux products, said officials at PHT's Oakland, Calif., office.

PHT will also preview at the show TurboLinux 3.0. "More support means more deployment," said Tony Pinto, IS manager at Minolta Canada Inc. in Mississauga, Ontario. Pinto's small network of 150 users has one Linux server now, but he plans a broad expansion next year with such core services as electronic commerce and electronic data interchange running on Linux.

"Support has been my major concern with Linux," he said. "If the support is there, it's the best OS."

Other companies in a range of industries have adopted Linux for a variety of tasks. Some examples:

• Nortel Information Network guarantees 99.5 percent uptime to the 27,000 clients of its Linux-based Internet services. Next year, NIN will add 60 more Linux servers and migrate its Oracle Corp. database to the operating system, said officials in Research Triangle Park, N.C.
• A major aerospace manufacturer has deployed more than 300 telecommuting Linux clients and, because of a budget freeze, refurbished dozens of 166MHz Pentium PCs as Linux-based Web and e-mail servers.
• Seattle-based retailer Jay Jacobs Inc. is deploying its mission-critical retail management system on point-of-sale Linux terminals in each of the company's 130 stores, which will connect back to Linux servers at corporate headquarters.
• Canadian National Railways, in Montreal, saves an estimated $250,000 on software licenses alone by running core services such as routing on Linux. The railway, which will double its Linux installation to 120 servers in the next year, deployed the upstart operating system in a method that appears increasingly common.

"I did it behind management's back," said Don Lafontaine, CNR's senior systems programmer. "[Management has] come around. They can't complain because none of our Linux servers have gone down."

In spite of the hitherto spotty support, a confluence of factors has lelevated Linux and the open source code model in general. Support from vendors including Intel Corp. and Oracle Corp. has contributed to management's increasing awareness and acceptance of Linux.

In addition, because corporations control the source code, they can more quickly develop in-house bug fixes--especially security problems--and more easily adapt given applications to specific needs.

"It's like a software erector set, it's very flexible," said a software engineer at a major networking vendor. "I needed to add a feature to a Linux chat application I was using. Having the source code made it easy."

Another feature propelling Linux acceptance is performance. One IT manager for a 3,500-employee telecommunications company switched his intranet server from Windows NT to Linux.

"It vastly outperforms the previous site," said the IT manager, who requested anonymity. "We expect to save at least $3 million over the next couple of years by just this switch."

The bottom line is acceptance of the open source code model is moving from the IT manager to the corporate level at many companies.

"One of the reasons we selected Linux was the open concept," said Bill Lawrence, chief financial officer at Jay Jacobs. "I don't want to be locked in to an environment. We don't believe there's a lot of risk in this. We're not afraid of doing it."

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