Linux penguin

Thanks to a plump little sea bird, a full-length 3D animated motion picture from a major Hollywood studio will soon be coming to a movie screen near you.

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Tux the penguin, the famed Linux mascot, may not be listed in the credits, but the technology behind the magic is a Linux server farm powered by 1,000 Xeon CPUs from Mississauga, Ont.-based Helios/Oceana.

Linux was the operating system of choice, said David Plant, director of business development at the company--which specializes in leading-edge digital video and visualization applications--because it allowed the customer to take advantage of recent developments in Alias/Wavefront's Maya animation software. The installation was similar to the one that generated the effects for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

"This is heavy lifting on the computer side," said Plant. "For many years it was the domain of proprietary operating systems. For the past couple of years, people talked about migration to open systems, and now it has arrived."

However that arrival is moving at a penguin-like waddle, according to Warren Shiau, IDC Canada's research manager for Canadian software markets and directions. "The trend is a steady progress upward," he noted. "Not overly quick, but always upward." IDC Canada estimates Linux servers represented approximately 18 per cent of server shipments here during the first quarter of this year, and seven per cent of dollar revenue.

World wide, unit shipments grew by 52.5 per cent in 2003. "Linux server growth continued to accelerate," commented Jean Bozman, research vice-president of IDC's worldwide server group, "demonstrating that Linux servers are taking on important roles in IT customers' computer infrastructures. What began with edge and Web-centric workloads is branching out to include HPC (high performance computing) and commercial workloads."

Jim Elliott, Linux advocate at IBM Canada, has been watching that attitude shift. "I have seen a change in the way people are looking at Linux, and open source in general," he said. "They're moving from infrastructure-type systems to more mission-critical."

That, in turn, is driving a change in the hardware customers are using. While he says that low-end Intel boxes suitable for the edge are still common, Elliott has been seeing interest in Linux on blades, and even on mainframes.

Still, says Tracey Harron, general manager of Information Technology Services, a division of Toronto-based Ainsworth Inc., the majority of customers she has seen run Linux on low-end Intel boxes.

Marcel den Hartog agrees. A Linux architect for Computer Associates, he sees implementation of the operating system as a way of extending the life of older servers. "Linux will perform the same on a low-end server as other operating systems will on high-end machines," he noted.

That's good news for customers who are increasingly moving Linux from the edge into mainstream applications. Shawn Aghdassi, operations manager at reseller Intellect Computer Source (ICS) in Toronto, says his customers frequently purchase Linux systems to act as file servers. So do Harron's. In fact, she estimates that one-quarter of them have moved Linux into the mainstream, as file and print servers or enterprise application servers. Her largest Linux client, a legal firm, has more than 1,000 users across Canada using Linux-based systems for everything from firewalls to e-mail.

Unlike ICS, which has been installing Linux for five or six years, Mississauga-based VAR Cytrex Computing Technologies only started working with the operating system early last year. "We felt that Linux as an operating system, especially in the server market, was beginning to gain momentum," explained president Ivan Pinto. "On average, in 2003 one out of every 10 servers we sold had Linux installed. So far in 2004, two out of 10 have had it installed."

Even in its first year, Cytrex, too, has noticed the shift to mainstream applications. Pinto recently put in a complete management system for a country club that included everything from accounting software to point-of-sale modules, all Linux-based. It's not only mainstream, it's mission-critical to the club's 1,200 members.

"We were able to provide them with expertise in the implementation of their Linux environment, and co-ordinated installation and support of the application with the developer to provide a smooth, trouble-free installation. It has now been eight months, and they could not be any happier," he said.

At Helios/Oceana, mission-critical applications are the norm, and Linux is meeting the challenge.

"Our Linux business has grown about 500 per cent in the past year," Plant noted. "Linux is a child of Unix, and as a child of Unix it has a pedigree as a stable and robust operating system. In our world, people are doing complex rendering where one frame of film could have been contributed to by 300 people. You don't want to lose that material, or have to reboot."

The next version of Linux will be even more stable and scalable, according to Ross Chevalier, chief technology officer at Novell Canada. Novell, which completed its acquisition of SuSE Linux earlier this year, has already released a fully hardened beta version incorporating the new 2.6 kernel, including both 32- and 64-bit support.

"Linux is in production," said Chevalier. "It's not just running 'Joe's Web Server.' Very large organizations that cannot be down have committed to Linux. When you're looking at how customers leverage servers, it's fine to talk about five-nines reliability, but it's not enough."

Enthusiasm for Linux is also not enough, according to Shiau. "For Linux as a server, the forecast is for good, continuing growth in terms of installed base," he said, "but not necessarily accompanied by similar growth in Linux server OS revenue.

"Linux will tack on a few extra points of market share in terms of installed base (in the short run primarily at the expense of Unix), but it will not tack on much extra in terms of market share as measured by share of market revenue."

In fact in his presentation at a recent Real World Linux show, he described a Brave New World--one of no revenue growth, and no profit growth.

On the surface, that's bad news for resellers. But, he quickly added, it is no longer necessary to make money from Linux itself. Instead, "backers make money off providing global channel to market, services/support, education/training/certification, and enterprise apps sitting on Linux." And that's good news for both resellers and vendors, who are leaping into the fray.

Novell, for example, is providing the tools and services pioneered under NetWare to Linux (and other operating system) users. "Novell is about writing network services," proclaimed James Simzer, director of sales and channel. "The operating system is a choice customers will be making over time."

By adopting this philosophy, he added, Novell effectively expands the customer base for its resellers to every organization that has computing, anywhere in the world.

"Linux is like a free puppy," he said. "I can give you the puppy for free, but it still needs care and nurturing."

Shiau likes this approach. "Novell is creating great opportunities for Linux," he observed.

Manageability is still a challenge, however, because the kernel currently does not allow monitoring by management software.

In his presentation Shiau commented that "strong customer expectations and growing customer requirements for software to manage Linux in their IT environments ... will increase as Linux moves upmarket and increasingly plays in business-critical workloads. Management tools, solutions and services are a prerequisite for wider Linux adoption."

To help address this issue, den Hartog says CA has proposed a kernel intercept module, which it will donate to the open source movement, so programs such as IBM's Tivoli and HP's OpenView and its own Unicenter can audit and control Linux systems in the enterprise.

The care and feeding of the penguin is already top-of-mind for Pinto.

"We are beginning to explore new areas of opportunity that we would like to specialize in," he said.

"I foresee a growing demand to provide support and related services to businesses and customers that do not have the expertise in-house."

Aghdassi agrees. "Service contracts are something we're concentrating on in the future," he said. "A lot of people are asking for them; they don't want to hire (staff) people."