The Linux Executive Report from IBM
October 23, 2013
The Linux Executive Report from IBM: October 23, 2013. 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
In a new blog, Mike Day, IBM Distinguished Engineer and Chief Virtualization Architect, Open Systems, describe five important upstream KVM features that can be expected in future enterprise distributions.
At Enterprise2013 Summit in Orlando, Florida, which drew over 2,700 clients and business partners, IBM launched new business analytics and cloud software solutions. The IBM zEnterprise family of mainframes, which includes the zEC12, zBC12 and Enterprise Linux Server (ELS) platforms, provides businesses with a high performance, secure, and efficient platform for analytics and cloud computing.
IBM recently published a new SPECvirt_sc2013 result, this time with Intel's newest processor, the Xeon E5-2600 V2, using a System X x3650M4 server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux v6.4.
In a guest blog post on Linux.com, Adam Jollans, Program Director of Linux and Open Virtualization Strategy at IBM, writes about why open computing matters today more than ever.
At InterConnect 2013 in Singapore, IBM unveiled new systems and solutions that help clients and managed service providers (MSPs) build private and hybrid clouds to get the most out of big data, social, and mobile workloads. They include PureSystems, Power Systems, Smarter Storage Systems, System x, and Technical Computing offerings that provide the flexibility clients need to quickly deploy clouds.
At LinuxCon and CloudOpen Europe in Edinburgh, The Linux Foundation announced that the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA) is becoming a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project.
Taking the approach that the best way to learn about and solve problems is to explore all sides of the issues, the "What's Next for IT?" video debate series provides a forum where expert IT influencers discuss cloud, data and security trends and technologies that are top of mind for business and tech clients.
Inside Linux at IBM
Based in Zagreb, Croatia, Altus Information Technologies provides cloud computing and data center services for a variety of clients in many different industries. The company was founded in 2011 as a subsidiary of Markoja d.o.o. and specializes in helping its clients find the right mix of IT infrastructure services to meet their needs—and their budgets. Altus IT needed a flexible, scalable, cloud-computing infrastructure to help broaden its offerings for corporate customers, while also increasing efficiency within its own data center.
Founded in 1991, Brodos AG is one of the leading distributors of telecommunications hardware, software and services in Germany. The company maintains some 5,000 retail outlets, employs around 370 people, and in 2010 achieved revenues of approximately $330 million. However, as Brodos won new customers, the company found that existing IT systems proved unable to scale to meet its workload. This threatened to impact the company's ability to maximize new business opportunities. Brodos consolidated to IBM BladeCenter HS23 servers with Intel Xeon processors, running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with KVM, and an IBM Storwize V7000 Unified disk system. Brodos can scale up the IBM solution quickly and easily to provide for new customers.
A new video on YouTube spotlights North Carolina State University, one of the largest technical colleges in the Southeast. NCSU uses the PowerLinux platform to manage big data and IBM Content Analytic Studio on the cloud to develop a smarter computing environment that uses the appropriate technologies based on the questions they are trying to answer.
IBM hosts Linux on System z Executive Council meetings in locations across the United States to provide education on Linux on System z. Check back frequently for information about educational opportunities coming to a city near you. Information is also available about Live Virtual Classes for z/VM and Linux.
Established at the end of 2012, Zetark is a specialist provider of cloud-based storage and infrastructure-as-a-service solutions. Zetark was founded to offer hosted data storage services to local and regional businesses of all sizes. As a start-up business, Zetark needed to create a scalable IT infrastructure rapidly and at low cost. Zetark chose IBM PureFlex System with Red Hat Linux, open source KVM virtualization technology, and FileTek StorHouse software to power its new strategic platform for enterprise cloud storage services.
IBM is active on all forms of social media, providing an easy way for customers and partners to stay up to date with the latest Linux and KVM information.
Inside IBM's Linux Partners
Computerworld UK's Matthew Finnegan describes how Bonham's Auction House saved on licensing and support costs by choosing Red Hat's open source KVM hypervisor technology as part of its server consolidation and disaster recovery project.
Red Hat is seeing global customer momentum for its Cloud Infrastructure solutions as customers such as Bonhams in the U.K. and Rural Credit Banks Funds in China have successfully migrated their virtualized systems to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization on IBM Systems in order to meet their growing business demands and manage global IT assets.
Registration is open for SUSECon, SUSE's annual global user conference, which will be held November 12-15, 2013, at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. As in prior years, IBM is a Platinum Sponsor of the event and this year, Jim Wasko, Director, IBM Linux Technology Center, will deliver a keynote focused on the future of Linux and open computing.
The OpenStack Summit is a four-day conference for OpenStack contributors, enterprise users, service providers, application developers and ecosystem members. Attendees can expect visionary keynote speakers, 150+ breakout sessions, hands-on workshops, collaborative design sessions and lots of networking over the four days. Keynote sessions will take place Tuesday and Wednesday, and the Design Summit, a special track for active technical contributors to plan the next software release, will span all four days.
Red Hat has released the latest minor release of the mature Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Platform. With an emphasis on providing greater stability for critical applications, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.10 offers enhanced features for reliability and security, including an updated version of OpenSCAP - the open source Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) configuration scanner, which meets the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) SCAP 1.2 standard.
The call for proposals is now open for the 10th annual Red Hat Summit to be held April 14-17, 2014, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Red Hat is also now accepting nominations for its eighth annual Red Hat Innovation Awards, which will be presented during Red Hat Summit 2014.