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Enterprise Linux: Are We There Yet?

Posted by Hemos on from the moving-towards-it dept.

Simon Crosby writes " Network Computing is running an special report on Linux in the enterprise. It evaluates strengths and weaknesses of Linux useage in the enterprise. It also discusses perceptions, roadblocks, security, clustering and other Linux enterprise issues."

2 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Office Apps != "The Corporate Enterprise" by brassrat77 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I think MS Word interoperability is perhaps the single most important barrier limiting companies from changing to Linux. Other Office products such as MS Excel and MS Powerpoint are also important.

    Desktop office applications are a noticable but small part of "the Enterprise" and NOT the main point of the original article.

    "Enterprise" usually refers to the core applications running in the corporate data center. Inventory, payroll, order processing. Applications where downtime costs $$/minute. Applications where "No application"=="No business".

    Linux is making gains in these areas. The adoption rate appears slow because

    1. It is slow. "Bet the company" decisions are always slow. Implementation is slow. Anyone remember how long it took Windows NT to break into corporate data centers? (Many would argue it still isn't ready)
    2. Companies don't always consider what is a "mission critical" application. Areas where Linux excels - web, mail, dns, and many other RFC-based services, for example - may not be viewed as "critical". At least until the boss wants to know why the corporate web site is down (nmida) or the email system is hosed (badtrans). Then we get something like the Giga Group recommendation to use anything but IIS.
    3. Companies see this as a competitive advantage and do not want to discuss it. The big NYC financial firms are a good example.
    4. Consulting firms need more linux experience. Many enterprise customers rely on the IT consulting arms of the big system integrators and consulting firms. If these outfits push something other than Linux, something other than Linux gets proposed. Do they get incentives from MS, Sun, IBM, HP, CPQ...? Maybe. Anyone pushing Linux like that? Not yet.
    5. CIOs don't always know what's running. I've come across repeated examples where the top managers swear "Linux isn't allowed" but there are stealth, pilot, and production deployments all over the shop. The file sharing and print system runs Samba on Linux and "just works" (and isn't considered "enterprise" until a key document is needed).

    Penetration of Linux could still be better, of course. We need better support from enterprise management and backup systems. We need more "mind share". This article helps.

    Desktops remain a problem. Out of sight, out of mind. Windows is in everyone's face every day.

  2. Almost There by uslinux.net · · Score: 5, Interesting
    There are still a few things lacking in Linux distributions to make it fully "enterprise-ready" (I hate that term). For anyone who has truly spent time with other Unices, the following is obvious - Better Package Management! The ability to test out packages without "commiting" them so, if something breaks, you can immediately roll back to the prior state. Yes, I know you can uninstall and reinstall old packages, but it's NOT the same. Use HP-UX for a while and you'll understand - you can install, remove, commit, rollback, and test packages. In a production environment, it is critical that a newly installed patch or program doesn't break existing systems!


    As far as the kernel goes, I think Linux is there. I DON'T think Linux is necessarily ready to compete with NT or 2000 (though I give it 18 more months), since it is still lacking quite a few easy to use admin tools (think of the NT print manager or DHCP admin and you'll understand what I mean), but it is coming along.