planet-ltc.org

A colleague sent me a link to this analyst paper today that takes a look at whether IBM has made good on the Linux promises it made back in 1999. I’m obviously biased, but I’m interested in hearing if anyone has thoughts on this topic.

Here’s the report: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/linux/pdfs/GCG_IBM_and_Linux-9_years_later.pdf

The opening teaser:

In 1999, IBM issued a series of announcements fully committing the company to supporting Linux. IBM vowed to Linux-enable all of their hardware platforms, including their non-x86 based mainframe, mini, and RISC-based systems. They also promised to release Linux versions of their software products and develop
Linux-centric service practices. Moreover, they pledged significant resources to the Linux community with the goal of advancing Linux and open source technology.

So, nine years later, did IBM deliver on these promises? Was their commitment to Linux genuine or just lip service? This report examines IBM’s current Linux products, services, and community support in light of the promises they made in 1999…

While I think it’s obvious IBM has been a huge investor in the Linux community, one thing that I noticed reading the report is just how much IBM is actually different from other community members. There are some noticeable differences in the investments and approach to supporting the Linux platform and community. I often forget to just take in all the Linux technologies IBM has been heavily involved in from Xen, KVM and libvirt to filesystems, to systemtap, kprobes and then there’s RAS, scalability and performance enhancements.

Another interesting thought to reflect on is just how important it has been that there are multiple investors in this field. If this report captures just what IBM did, think of the industry combined. IBM couldn’t have done anything this big with Linux if it weren’t for co-creating with a community of enthusiasts, researchers, governments, Intel, AMD, Google, Nokia, Motorola, Oracle and thousands more. What would the report look like if you compiled all the investments and work the entire community leveraged across the industry. Linux is “bigger than huge” when you stop to think about it. This is also why I’ve said for a couple years now when you extend the investment model 3 to 5 years into the future, Sun and its anti-Linux,  Solaris push against the tide of the industry loses in the end. I think we’re starting to witness that now. Sure, OpenSolaris is a great idea… it’s just 9 years late and it’s too late to matter now.

I’m interested in outside perspectives too - where do you think IBM stands? Has the community development and investment model worked? Where will this lead in the future and what will be the next evolution of the model? Red Hat seems to think the model will evolve to include increased customer co-creation - I tend to agree. Why? Because the incentive model to invest aligns very well - and when you have alignment, it almost naturally will happen.

http://www.mozilla.com/products/download.html?product=firefox-3.0&os=win〈=en-US

Let’s break a record…

UPDATE: The site is back up if you were experiencing download issues earlier.

Justifying investments in a real time Linux platform is perhaps too easy given a new report from Tabb Group (URLs below). Purists may initially point out that the report is more focused on speed of execution which real time is not necessarily intended to provide. I’ll counter that argument right now by pointing out that most real time implementations do increase speed while still providing the benefit of determinism that real time is intended to offer. Besides, how can you ensure speedy execution across thousands of transactions if you don’t have a deterministic platform? Even the fastest drag race cars slow down eventually…

Add in real time Java and you have a fully deterministic stack.

16 percent of all U.S. institutional equity commissions are exposed to latency risk, totaling $2 billion, according to a new report from the TABB Group.

http://www.tabbgroup.com/PublicationDetail.aspx?PublicationID=346

http://www.wallstreetandtech.com/feed/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208400864&cid=RSSfeed_WST_All

A noticed a very interesting developerWorks article today on the ext4 filesystem.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-ext4/index.html?ca=drs-

There’s a great summary table of the new features. Remember though, ext4 is still labeled experimental.

Ext4 is the latest in a long line of Linux® file systems, and it’s likely to be as important and popular as its predecessors. As a Linux system administrator, you should be aware of the advantages, disadvantages, and basic steps for migrating to ext4. This article explains when to adopt ext4, how to adapt traditional file system maintenance tool usage to ext4, and how to get the most out of the file system.

If you’re in the NYC area, IBM is hosting a great “Next Generation Linux” event at the Hilton on Church St. It should be a great day of speakers discussing where Linux is heading, what makes Linux unique and “special”, and what workloads are great for running Linux. It’s a packed session from 9-12 (breakfast at 8 if you’re an early riser).

You can register here:

https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp017.nsf/agenda?openform&seminar=692H5MES&locale=en_US/

IBM launched its iDataPlex server systems today - think of it as a “Google” for your datacenter. It’s targeted at web workloads and is insanely dense and power efficient compared to traditional server buildouts. And it uses Linux on commodity hardware so it’s also ridiculously cheap. If you’re a web hosting shop or you have your own web farm that could use a serious overhaul, iDataPlex is a very cool solution.

Did I mention it only runs Linux?

Ashlee Vance cracks me up - it’s clear from this article he’s been talking to vendors for two long (see the last sentence in this quote):

The system itself is quite remarkable. IBM has reworked its approach to rack servers allowing it to place twice as many systems in a single cabinet. This attack centers on delivering the most horsepower possible in a given area while also reducing power consumption. IBM hopes the iDataPlex unit will attract today’s service providers buying thousands and tens of thousands of servers and also big businesses such as oil and gas firms and media companies that will also possibly pursue a grid-ish data center computing model pioneered to some degree by Google.

But the really awe inspiring bit of iDataPlex comes from the fact that IBM is willing to go after this market at all and that it did so without screwing up the hardware design.

Ars covered the details as well over here: