The Linux Executive Report from IBM
August 4, 2010
The Linux Executive Report from IBM: August 4, 2010. A monthly summary of important trends and market research, case studies and information about IBM's Linux initiatives of interest to senior management.
Linux News
IBM announced the zEnterprise mainframe server and a new systems design that allows workloads on mainframe, POWER7 and System x servers to share resources and be managed as a single, virtualized system. "The new mainframe is the fastest enterprise server in the world and represents a giant leap forward in performance," says Tom Rosamilia, general manager for IBM Power and z Systems. "This new dimension in enterprise computing - extending mainframe governance to POWER7 and System x blades integrated into the zEnterprise System architecture - was developed over the past three years with direct involvement from a team of IBM's 30 top customers, which provided direct input at every stage of the development process."
Novell has released SUSE Gallery, a new online showcase for registered SUSE Studio users to publish their appliances and cloud-based applications. With SUSE Gallery, end users can browse published appliances for the solution to their particular commercial or personal need, and then download the appliance free of charge.
EnterpriseDB has announced the immediate availability of the latest version of its flagship Postgres Plus Advanced Server database. EnterpriseDB's Postgres Plus Advanced Server 8.4, which is built on the open source object relational Postgres database, is now fully compatible with all the features and functionality found in the most recent community distribution. The new release provides increased core functionality for the database as a whole, increased Oracle compatibility, increased manageability, and increased security, according to Robin Schumacher, EnterpriseDB's director of product strategy.
Inside Linux at IBM
The Linux Journal is conducting a survey of Linux and open source favorites, and IBM has been nominated for the best Linux Server Vendor. Please consider going to the Linux Journal website to cast your vote for your Linux favorites; don't forget to vote for Best Linux Server Vendor!
Did you miss a webcast covering important information about technologies you need to learn more about? IBM offers replays on-demand of webcasts presented by IBM experts and partners.
Jean Staten Healy, head of cross-IBM Linux strategy, recently joined Josh Dorfman, director of alliance marketing at Novell, and host Matthew T. Grant for a new cloudchasers show focused on open source and the cloud. The cloud segment of the IT market will continue to grow rapidly over the next several years, a trend fueled by business pressures resulting from the current economic situation as well as increased pressure to accelerate the speed of innovation and provide higher levels of service at lower cost. "Our clients are really seeing there is value they can get from the cloud," stated Healy. Recent IBM client surveys confirm these concerns, she said, pointing out that more than three quarters of the clients who have been surveyed list cost pressures as the top factor in their interest in cloud solutions. This was followed by the desire to improve time to value, and also to improve reliability and availability.
Most organizations today use various electronic forms of collaboration such as electronic documents, email and instant messaging to connect people across the organization. But, as trends go, there are new challenges associated with managing the environments and electronic content with the technologies used today. Organizations need to address these challenges by implementing cost-effective solutions to find information and share ideas rapidly and beyond traditional organizational boundaries.
Inside IBM's Linux Partners
New Aberdeen reports on best practices for decreasing cost and improving processing power on the mainframe are available now.
Since the first Beta of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 was released in April, Red Hat internal testing groups, customers, partners, and community members have been busy testing and providing feedback on the product.
Register now to learn about managing Red Hat Enterprise Linux in an increasingly virtual world at the September 14th webinar.
Are you currently evaluating the business benefits of running virtualization in a distributed versus mainframe environment?
Increasing demands for server consolidation utilizing less space and money continues to be a key driver when implementing and deploying new hardware. The key: do even more with less. When running Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the new IBM System zEnterprise with z/VM, your business can continue to deliver unique business value in the areas of virtualization, operational flexibility, scalability, workload management, efficiency, business continuance, reliability and security.
This webcast hosted by Novell and IBM discusses the highly scalable, superior IT optimization and workload consolidation that System z delivers to a virtualized environment.
Are you ready to learn how Red Hat unlocks the value of your IT ecosystem?
The Oracle/Sun/Solaris merger has many people thinking about their data center infrastructure and new options as they look ahead. Understanding some of the key technical considerations when looking to migrate your applications can help you better understand the issues and reduce the risk.