After all of these years, is Linux’s star finally rising? Early indications are that Linux, with its ability to implement virtualization on any computing platform, is indeed becoming a key facilitator of cloud deployment.
What makes Linux so adaptable, and what implications does this have for cloud best-practices?
There are several factors that have accelerated Linux deployment in general:
- No vendor lock-in. Linux has always been an "open" operating system, even though there are several different commercially available distributions of it. Without a proprietary "lock" on its existence by a specific vendor, Linux has functioned as a platform-agnostic operating system for years, although it hasn't been aggressively deployed by enterprises until recently.
- Ease of virtualization. Linux can easily be virtualized on any computing platform -- from x86 servers to mainframe computers. The natural agility that has resulted from virtualized Linux makes the OS ideal for the on-demand provisioning that characterizes cloud services.
- Third-party applications. Linux has attracted a plethora of third-party enterprise applications over the years that have become mission-critical.
Because of these advantages, many enterprise IT departments are eagerly embracing Linux. This is evidenced by the amount of datacenter virtualization that is occurring with Linux operating systems and applications.
Earlier this year in an analysts' briefing, for instance, IBM said that one third of its mainframe sites have virtualized Linux, and that the pace of Linux virtualization is picking up. And when I talk with CIOs, everyone has virtualization projects that involve server consolidations, and a majority of them are characterized by using Linux as a virtual operating system.
The virtualization push is not as aggressive with Windows -- although that space is growing -- and even fewer sites that I talk to are proceeding with Unix virtualizations. This makes Linux the "king" of virtualization in many CIOs' eyes. Virtualization, of course, is the fuel that stokes the engine of the cloud, which is a virtualized IT infrastructure.
So what best-practices do these trends point to?
Choose Linux for development. The Linux operating system is one of the cornerstones of cloud virtualization. If you have applications that are nearing the end of their natural lives and you are planning to purchase or develop a new package, obtaining or developing one that runs on Linux might prove to be a big advantage.
Make sure your IT toolsets work with Linux. Over the past year, several Linux vendors have come out with dashboard and point-and-click Linux tools especially designed for building, provisioning, monitoring, and fine-tuning Linux systems. These tools give everyone, whether they are a data base administrator, a network specialist, or an applications developer, a uniform and end-to-end view of each Linux application on a summary "dashboard" that individuals can drill down into for further information. Use of a common tool eliminates the confusion that occurs when individuals use different tools that give different results.
These tools also simplify the deployment of virtual Linux to any host computing platform IT desires. This is because the software actually contains rules and logic that automatically prepare a new virtual Linux system with the information it will need to run on the chosen target host computer, whether the host is an x86 machine, a Unix machine, or even a mainframe. All that IT staff needs to do is to select the target host platform with the point and click of a mouse from the tool dashboard. From there, the process of allocating the new virtual Linux system to its host computer is automatically performed by the tool.
Stay compatible. You can customize Linux, but when you do, make sure that you stay true to your underlying Linux license. There are Linux tools in the market that can automatically monitor your customized code -- and "flag" you if the customization becomes so radical that you are risking the loss of vendor support, or of forward and backward compatibility with other Linux OS releases.
Get the best Linux help out there. There have been frequent references to IT skill shortages, but this does not hold true for the Linux workforce, and that's good news for IT and its long-term cloud mission.
