IDC: Downturn to drive Linux adoption
Summary
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In a survey of 330 organizations with 100 or more employees, IDC found that 53 percent were planning to increase adoption of Linux on servers, while 48 percent were planning to increase Linux on clients, as a direct result of the economic climate. The survey was conducted in February, and the white paper published on Monday.
Sixty-two percent of respondents — who comprised chief information officers, IT vice presidents, IT directors, managers and consultants — said their budget had been cut or that "they are moving more cautiously and investing only where needed", wrote white-paper authors Al Gillen and Brett Waldman.
"Economic downturns have the tendency to accelerate emerging technologies, boost the adoption of effective solutions, and punish solutions that are not cost competitive," Gillen, an IDC system software analyst, said in a statement. "This survey confirms that Linux users view [Linux] favourably, and this view places Linux in a competitive position to emerge from this downturn as a stronger solution."
Among the survey participants, 55 percent already had Linux server operating systems in use and 39 percent had some Unix server operating systems, while 97 percent had Windows server operating systems deployed. Twenty percent of respondents said they were in the process of evaluating whether to increase Linux adoption, and 27 percent said they would not increase Linux adoption.
IDC said in the white paper that Linux adoption on the server side could be accelerated by the availability of "ultra-low-cost" servers. Although the survey and white paper were sponsored by Novell, IDC said the ultra-low-cost server trend might not be positive for Linux server operating-system vendors, and may lead to the increased uptake of "non-paid Linux solutions".
On the client side, Linux adoption could be increased by use of netbooks running pared down Linux operating systems, IDC said. However, 20 percent of respondents were still evaluating client-side Linux, while 32 percent said they were not planning to increase its adoption.
Eighty-eight percent of respondents said they plan to evaluate, deploy or increase their use of virtualization software within Linux operating systems over the next 12 to 24 months, while nearly half of the participants stated that the move to virtualization is accelerating their adoption of Linux.
This article was originally published on ZDNet.co.uk.
Talkback Most Recent of 28 Talkback(s)
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Microsoft will probably lower prices rather than cede market share, but,
even a price break on the server end, and netbook end may not be enough to stop market share losses. MS does not have a suitable OS for Arm based netbooks, and for virtualized environments, the licensing nightmare is just too much, and Linux is just too good.
DonnieBoy17th Mar 2009 -
The problem with lowering prices
is that once they do that, they'd have to keep them low.
Michael Kelly17th Mar 2009 -
DonnieBoy17th Mar 2009
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Oh please, you must really update your rhetoric
even a price break on the server end, and netbook end may not be enough to stop market share losses. MS does not have a suitable OS for Arm based netbooks, and for virtualized environments, the licensing nightmare is just too much, and Linux is just too good
Now, for the line: Although the survey and white paper were sponsored by Novell
Now, based on your past arguments, when it was a Microsoft sponsered white paper, why should Novell, a company with an investment in Linux, be believed, if you claim that Microsoft based studies are to be ignored?
Oh, and the ARM statement was setteled some time ago: Windows will spur the growth of Atom based notebooks, not Linux will spur the groth of ARM based netbooks.
GuidingLight17th Mar 2009 -
Maybe you failed to notice how much Linux is already used on servers. Maybe
you did not notice that MS was forced to re-introduce XP and give it away on the netbook platform.
And, Arm for netbooks will get hot, with equal performance, but much longer battery life, and lower prices. MS does not have a solution here, and when they do, they will have to give it away to compete with Linux.DonnieBoy17th Mar 2009 -
....
"...they will have to give it away or outsource opensource 'GL's' job to compete with Linux."
^o^
n0neXn0ne17th Mar 2009 -
RE: Oh please, ... don't beg
"...why should Novell , a company with an investment in Linux ' and Microsoft ', be believed,..." ?
Because when " Novell & Microsoft Collaborate Customers Win."
^o^
n0neXn0ne17th Mar 2009 -
I'm more concerned about virtualization
[Eighty-eight percent of respondents said they plan to evaluate, deploy or increase their use of virtualization software within Linux operating systems over the next 12 to 24 months, while nearly half of the participants stated that the move to virtualization is accelerating their adoption of Linux.]
Good news and bad news. The good news is that virtualization is driving Linux adoption. The bad news is that virtualization IS TOTALLY STUPID! I've written at length about this facade so I won't rewrite all of that here. Suffice to say, virtualization is good for development/ad-hoc deployments and NOTHING else (WRT Linux). It's a mainframe technology trying to turn Linux into a mainframe . . .
Roger Ramjet17th Mar 2009 -
Running multiple (different) OSes on a single box makes no sense, except
for testing purposes. Running multiple copies of ONE kernel is the way to go. When you use multiple different OSes on a single box, you have to have the OS image, and all of the application images loaded in memory for EACH instance. The best approach is to let the OS offer virtual copies of the same OS. With that, you get ONLY one image for the OS and all of the applications. On a server farm, each server should be dedicated to a particular OS. This is part of why RedHat is moving to KVM.
Virtualization done RIGHT is a great tool.DonnieBoy17th Mar 2009 -
Half right
Humans can do one thing at a time. Humans look at a VM and say "Hey, we can run one application at a time" - so they do it because it resembles what their world view is.
Computers can multi-task. UNIX can automatically handle all resource requests from multiple processes. It does not matter to UNIX whether you are running 1 application or 100 - it can handle it (it's the hardware that is the limiting factor - not the OS).
So what are you using the VMs for? Creating a sandbox for developers to have root and mess it up is a great use for VMs. There are no others.Roger Ramjet17th Mar 2009 -
There are lots of good reasons to run VMs. Just letting Linux multitask is
the best solution for many (ok most) applications. but, obviously, for an ISP renting virtual servers, you do NOT want 2 customers on the same OS instance. Also, if an instance starts needing a lot of CPU, with VMs, you can automatically move it to its own machine, or to a lightly loaded machine (load balancing). But, just completely isolating different functions that are not related, so that you can be sure that one is not affecting the other is very valuable, especially when the overhead of doing so is insignificant (when virtualization is done right).DonnieBoy17th Mar 2009 -
There are few good reasons
If you are a vendor selling VM access - yes you need virtualization. Isolating outside customers to their own instance is necessary. But that is circular logic - using the definition to create the definition.
Application isolation is not hard to do - it's just that sysadmins don't. If an application is self-contained on its own 'storage' - then it can be moved in-whole to another computer. Most decent sysadmins can spot overloaded computers or applications that clash - and can do something about it. Isolation is something humans understand - but computers are not introverts.Roger Ramjet17th Mar 2009 -
But, if virtualization is cheap, and has insignifican overhead, it will be
the method of choice to separate customers, and un-related applications, and make them portable to other machines for load balancing and maintenance. Then, load balancing and separation can be automatic, and in real-time without human intervention, and we do not need so many man-hours to manage servers and applications.
No reason to mess with administration hacks, when virtualization is free and insignificant overhead.DonnieBoy17th Mar 2009 -
Not so fast
You are mixing metaphors. Virtualization does not eliminate sysadmins, it just changes their roles. Complexity in the hypervisor/administration "level" adds to the "normal" complexity of UNIX. In fact, it makes it HARDER to diagnose problems because you are virtualizing them.
The "load balancing" you are espousing does not exist. With 1 instance of UNIX, it automatically load balances. With VMs, you need to ASSIGN memory and CPU MANUALLY. So if one VM is running a 10% utilization - you (as a human) have to do something about it (hardly automatic load balancing).
Your other assertions are fantasy. You never eliminate IT positions, you only create NEW ones! In the old days, syadmins did everything. Now you have Network guys, SAN admins, UNIX admins, and of course VMWare admins.Roger Ramjet17th Mar 2009 -
Isolating different jobs on different VMs will be a huge savings in
administration. And, being able to move VM instances from one physical machine to another is already here and will be universal within a couple of years. Letting users manage their own machine, and being able to move jobs to different physical machines for either maintenance or load balancing without administrative hacks will save a ton of time. Managing VM instances will be much easier than managing user accounts and moving them from machine to machine.DonnieBoy17th Mar 2009
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