The Linux Executive Report from IBM
September 26, 2013
The Linux Executive Report from IBM: September 26, 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 keynote at LinuxCon North America last week, Brad McCredie, IBM Fellow and Vice President of Power Development, announced that IBM plans to invest $1 billion over the next 5 years in new Linux and open source technologies for IBM's Power Systems servers. This new investment exemplifies IBM's commitment to provide choice and flexibility for clients to manage and develop next generation applications for big data and analytics, social and mobile, and cloud-based solutions using open source technology.
The Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA), a consortium committed to fostering the adoption of Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), has announced that NetApp has joined the organization as a Governing Member.
The OpenDaylight Project, a community-led and industry-supported open source framework to advance software-defined networking (SDN), recently provided a first glimpse at the OpenDaylight SDN architecture for the first release called "Hydrogen."
The latest update of The Linux Foundation's report on Linux kernel development has been published. Since 2005, almost 10,000 individual developers representing 1,000 different companies have contributed to the kernel, creating a common resource developed by companies that compete fiercely in other areas. Written by Jonathan Corbet, LWN.net, Greg Kroah-Hartman, The Linux Foundation, and Amanda McPherson, The Linux Foundation, this is the fifth update to the document, which has been published roughly annually since 2008.
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 1793, Bonhams is a privately owned British auction house and one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. Bonhams needed a scalable, cost-effective system for remote management and full disaster recovery between its data centers in New York and San Francisco.
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.
The US Open—now underway—draws millions of tennis enthusiasts from all over the world for two intense weeks of non-stop world-class tennis action. Brian O'Connell, Software Engineer and Master Inventor, IBM, provides a behind-the-scenes peek at the technology supporting the event in his new blog. Fans are watching events unfold not only at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, but also through an integrated online, mobile and social experience delivering real-time play-by-play action, live video streaming and live match scores and statistics, ensuring that every fan experiences the thrill and excitement on center court.
IBM Enterprise2013 is ideal for business and IT executives as well as IT professionals and practitioners who know that leading in today's global economy requires an IT infrastructure that is efficient, capable of responding quickly to changing market conditions and needs, enables collaboration and informed decisions, and ensures the security, privacy, and availability of company and customer data.
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
In a new blog, Andrew Theurer, Senior Software Engineer, IBM Linux Technology Center, examines the SPECvirt sc2013 results achieved by the IBM Flex System x240 server with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 with its Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor, and explains how the SPECvirt_sc2013 is different from the SPECvirt _sc2010:
Twenty-one years after its introduction, Linux is now widely accepted and trusted within the vast majority of enterprise server environments, according to a recent study commissioned by enterprise Linux provider SUSE of IT executives at mid- to large-sized businesses. Eighty-three percent of respondents say they are now running Linux in their server environments, and more than 40% are using Linux as either their primary server operating system or as one of their top server platforms.
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.
Registration is open for SUSECon, SUSE's annual global user conference. The event will be held November 12-15, 2013, at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.