The State of Corporate IT: A case for Linux

The Advantages Of Linux

Red Hat was key in helping them realize the benefits to the bottom line. Within 60 days of the first overtures, they were on site with a demonstration that completely blew the corporate team away. Red Hat brought a single Pentium class system for a site visit and thanks to the early legwork their engineers had done, were able to integrate the box into the network and take over all file and print server requests for one busy segment within four hours. The system ran for the next 10 business days without any downtime, something NT machines had not been able to do very often. All issues that did come up were fixed on the spot without a single kernel restart. File and print transactions were stored in ques and processed without incident. Samba allowed the Linux box to seamlessly integrate into the file network and actually increased overall performance. Nightly backups were performed from the master NT server without any sign of incompatibility. Print jobs were also handled seamlessly with fewer delays and error messages along the way. This limited demonstration was an absolute success and had most of the corporate advance team nodding their heads in approval.

Additional demonstrations followed that focused on developers and system administrators. Using a Linux system with a combination of existing products and a newer application called VMware, developers were able to write, compile and test code on a variety of distinct platforms from a single machine. When code did crash, it affected only one environment, which could quickly be killed and restarted without interfering with other processes. Since the host GUI was not tied to the Linux kernel, but was instead run as a separate process, even the most complex and sensitive graphical development would not bring down the machine. In each case, individual processes were simply killed and restarted to a fresh state. Productivity benefits were obvious.

By activating an Apache web server on the same machine, development, administration and testing of the corporate intranet could be handled in real-time. Quick fixes could be made in code windows, loaded in the appropriate Apache folders and tested on multiple platforms with multiple browsers within minutes. This level of stability and flexibility was something these developers had been craving for some time. Part of the excitement involved the bottom line as well. With the exception of VMware, all of the Linux software was essentially free and did not have any of the restrictions imposed under NT EULA's. Developers were able to clone and distribute development environments to other machines across the hall or across the country without fear of violating licensing terms.

In fact, with Linux, there would be no licensing fees at all. The proposed file servers, print servers and web servers to be hosted under Linux did not require the purchase of any client licenses whatsoever. There would be no E-commerce transaction fees, no distribution limitations and no expensive application bundling requirements. Developers could use a variety of existing applications, from Star Office to SQL databases to C++ IDE's, all without additional fees. Contractors could be provided with all the tools they needed with no additional impact on cost.

During these developer and administration demonstrations, it was found that users already familiar with Unix seemed to feel right at home in Linux, so extensive retraining would not be needed. The KDE environment was similar enough to Windows so that even novice users got the hang of it pretty soon. Since Star Office was also free for use on Windows machines, entire project teams could be assembled and provided with some of the same key tools, regardless of platform - all without impacting the bottom line. The possibilities were becoming obvious, as were the advantages. Linux provided more freedom and more flexibility at a lower initial and long-term cost. Linux gave them an alternative - one that could be explored and researched without the need to allocate additional capital funds. It was a pretty easy decision to continue exploring this new platform.