The Use of Linux Server and Linux Workstations in Business - Case Study Example

Topic: The Use of Linux Server and Linux Workstations in Business Introduction The pressing need within the Information Technology world today is for solutions that are cost effective and practical in terms of reducing the complexity with its users.Therefore, the preference is systems that are easy to manage, robust, scalable and secure.Linux has the ability to satisfy these criteria and also offers applications that are tuned to solve high specific and demanding business requirements.The market share of Linux in the server environment has been expanding rapidly over the past few years and has seen its adoption by technology powers such as Sun, IBM and HP who played a major role in this growth, (Mookhey, Burghate, & Information Systems Audit and Control Association, 2005). According to an IDC analysis of the worldwide server market in 2004, Linux servers generated US 1.3 billion in quarterly revenue for the last quarter of 2004, representing 9 per cent of worldwide server revenue.It was also the second sequential quarter of more the US 1 billion in quarterly revenue and in overall, Linux server revenue grew 35.6 per cent year over year, while the unit shipment grew 29.1 per cent year over year.For businesses considering migrating to Linux, the choice has become easier as most of their existing technology vendors such as IBM, Sun, HP, Oracle and Novell already have Linux based solutions and many of these vendors offer white papers and tools to help businesses move to Linux from the legacy system of these vendors. Linux feasibility in server and working environments - business requirements A global competition has begun for the software standards for both computers and mobile telephones as various global stakeholders are involved in this competition including telecom operators, hardware integrators, software manufacturers, hardware manufacturers.The complexities of this competition to the earlier standards competitions of Apple versus IBM, Betamax versus VHS is threefold as first it is a three way competition among Microsoft, Nokia and Linux; Nokia’s competition also includes the consortium of mobile handset manufacturers, Symbian; Linux also refers to the open source software phenomenon (Choi et al., 2005; Von Hippel and Von Krogh, 2003). Secondly, the competition is global, involving American, European and increasingly the global interne t, through open source software and thirdly, the involvement of the World Wide Web in open source software and Linux systems (von Hippel and Von Krogh, 2003) further emphasizes the social and community aspects of this competition for the software standard for mobile phones.One key difference among the three competitors is that Nokia (Symbian) and Linux are following an open system to the competition, allowing potentially closer sharing and collaboration with other companies.Microsoft is following a relatively closed system approach in order to apply the Windows standards in personal computers to mobile phones. There are numerous stakeholders involved including hardware and software manufactures and i n terms of collaboration within the three competitors, the open systems approach of both Nokia (Symbian) and Linux (Open Source Software) allows a potential partnership between Nokia and Linux. Comparison Linux server and Linux workstation between three business vendors 3 Distributions There are several Linux distributors, such as SuSE, Red Hat, and Caldera and e ach distribution features its own set of value-added packages, such as SuSEs YaST system administration tool and sax utility for configuring the X Window graphical user interface. Ones preference in Linux distributions often comes down to which value-added packages one finds most useful as no Linux distribution is expensive when compared to the cost of licensing a commercial operating system.However, the expense of purchasing copies of several distributions in order to perform a comparison would be considerable and fortunately, businesses have the option to purchase evaluation versions of the major distributions at low cost from sites such as LinuxMall and CheapBytes.This can greatly lessen the expense of making a comparison.The evaluation versions are fully licensed and fully functional copies of Linux, but do not include some commercial software that is bundled with the formal distribution, do not include printed documentation, and do not qualify for installation assistance, (Choi, Millar, Berger, & Chu, 2007) While there is no mandate to purchase the complete version of a Linux distribution after using one of the evaluation copies, it probably is wise to do so in order to ensure that ones preferred Linux distributor remains financially viable.Hardware With a few minor exceptions, commercial versions of UNIX are closely tied to the hardware sold by the operating system vendor.Suns Solaris will not work with hardware sold by Hewlett-Packard, nor will HP-UX operate on a Sun SPARCstation.Linux, by contrast, is available for a relatively broad collection of platforms such as the Intel X86, Sun SPARC, Compaq Alpha, and Power PC (including the Power Macintosh and some models of IBMs RS/6000). Linux can extend the useful life of a machine past the time when it is no longer supported by the vendor who sold it, f or example, older Sun SPARCstations will not run current versions of Solaris. Until the advent of SPARC Linux, the only options were to retire such equipment or to continue to run a version of the operating system that may not enjoy vendor support. Linux allows businesses as well as libraries facing this dilemma to keep older equipment in service using a current and supported operating system.Linux is most widely used on the Intel X86 platform where, its low resource requirements give Linux a distinct advantage over the commercial operating systems that compete with it, (Mookhey, Burghate,& Information Systems Audit and Control Association, 2005) In many cases, a Linux system will not require as much computing power as its commercial competitors in order to provide equivalent functionality and one reckons that this matters greatly to many businesses that are often looking for ways to stretch their computing budgets without compromising on quality of service. In terms of support in the various areas, sites that bring production services online using Linux have a wide range of options when selecting a support service; choices range in price from free to the usual and accepted cost for commercial operating system support. Long-time Linux users are accustomed to informal support channels, consisting of local user groups, mailing lists, as well as Usenet newsgroups and for much of Linux early life, these were the only support options available and they remain useful today.As Linux has matured, more conventional support channels have emerged to fill the needs of Linux users.Support options now include a number of small companies such as LinuxCare, Indelible Blue, and LANShark Systems and some Linux distributors, such as Red Hat and Caldera, also offer support to their customers beyond the usual installation support. As a sign that Linux has grown beyond its original freeware label, it is perhaps instructive to note that Red Hats support services begin at a cost of 225 per incident and extend up to 55,000 per year.The latter sum is not expected to appeal to a great many businesses, but does provide for an individual manager to be assigned to a designated support account, in addition to other benefits.Linux has begun to attract the attention of some of the largest and most recognizable companies in the computing industry as SCO Professional Services; a division of the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), now sells contracts for open source telephone consulting. Linux is one of the open source products that SCO supports and similarly, industry giant IBM Global Services now offers both Internet and voice support for its Linux customers and has evolved in to an easy to install, use as windows and often faster as every Linux distribution is coming out with new GUI tools for system administration.The development of office applications has reached a point where many standard office functions can be done perfectly well in Linux. Application comparison for Linux and Microsoft LINUX MICROSOFT FUNCTION Office Application StarOffice Writer Word Word Processing StarOffice Calc Excel Spreadsheet StarOffice Impress PowerPoint Presentation Evolution (in development) Outlook Calendaring/scheduling/email Internet Application Netscare Navigator Internet Explorer Web browser Netscape Messenger Outlook E-mail Utilities Nautilus or GMC Windows Explorer File manager Internet configuration wizard Network and dial-up connections Dial-up internet connector Network configuration Internet connection wizard Network configuration Utility graphics The grimp N/A Adobe shop is the windows alternative Drawing and graphic manipulation program Multimedia XplayCd media player, Music Cd player, real player Windows media player Streaming video and audio Consideration in Linux Applicability to Business The benefits of using Linux in both a small firm and a big enterprise are the same coming down to cost.Such costs have been traditionally coming from purchasing hardware and continue through software purchase, licensing fees, upgrades as well as support costs.Such fees will increase as the business grows and although an expensive irritant, are at the least foreseeable.Software upgrades come frequently than they should, are often incompatible with previous versions and often too require expensive hardware upgrades. Support has been cited as the worst cost of all, for it is least manageable upgrades are likely to require more time - and more downtime - than planned, as breakdowns due to viruses and general instability cost time and money.With Linux, these costs either do not occur at all or are greatly reduces as most of the software is free - or, for convenience, it can be purchased once and then loaded onto as many computers as desires.With few exceptions, there are no licensing fees as on the other hand software upgrades can be downloaded for free over the internet and seldom requires hardware upgrades, (Kirby, 2000). Support is also likely to be less expensive as less is needed due to Linux’s immunity to window viruses as ninety nine per cent of the computer viruses are written for windows operating system.Windows is easier to write viruses for as opposed to Linux which is out of the box and has security features that defeat most common viruses.The stability behind Linux is exemplary as possibility of it being destabilized by badly written applications as well as badly written device driver is low due to its more advanced memory management.If an application crashes while running using Linux, the chances of it bringing down the whole system are remote. The security systems in Linux is unlikely to be of much concern in a small office as it is in a major enterprise particularly if the business is thinking of implementing its own external website or e-commerce site.Linux requires a modest hardware requirement, requirements that have an almost impossible time with a recent version of windows.Linux can run with such successfully as an internet server for dozens of workstations. Comparison for Linux verses Microsoft COSTS LINUX MICROSOFT INITIAL COSTS Hardware purchase Yes Yes Operating system purchase Optional Part of hardware purchase price Application purchase Optional (no cost for free software) Yes RECURRING COSTS Licensing Fees No Yes Hardware upgrades Optional Yes Operating system upgrades Optional (no cost for free software) Yes Cost comparisons of Linux verses Microsoft are always so overwhelmingly favorable to Linux and questions arise on open source and free software, how they are produces and supported and what makes Linux better than the traditional proprietary software. Summary and conclusion Many sites are initially drawn to Linux by its low price, this is a valid reason to explore Linux, but a narrow focus on software costs belies Linux real utility.More importantly, Linux offers expanded choices to businesses that are looking for a proven, reliable solution for a number of computing needs.Linux runs on a wide range of hardware and i n some cases, Linux can allow a machine to see active service well after it is no longer supported by the manufacturer Due to its low resource requirements, Linux often can provide acceptable performance on equipment that would be considered underpowered for use with commercial operating systems.Thanks to Linux, businesses have the option to use out dated or inexpensive computing hardware to provide even production level services.The number of applications available for Linux is large and growing larger almost lite rally with each passing month and m any commercial software publishers, with the conspicuous exception of Microsoft, have developed Linux versions of their products, (Lathrop, 2002). Linux historically has enjoyed its greatest strength when deployed as a server.However, the range of Linux desktop applications has grown sufficiently that it may be a viable contender for that purpose as well.Businesses as well as libraries and other entities now have an alternative to paying licensing costs for commercial operating systems and application programs.The commercial deployment of Linux has created a cottage industry of companies that are willing to answer Linux questions for a fee, that same commercial acceptance has led some of the more easily recognized names in the computing industry to offer Linux support.The emergence of commercial Linux vendors, such as Red Hat and Caldera, has opened up yet another channel of fee-based technical assistance as the proliferation of Linux support services provides businesses and libraries with a chance to obtain commercial assistance from vendors who match both their needs and their budgets. References Choi, J.C., Millar, C.J.M., Berger, R., & Chu, T.R., (2007). Increasing returns and marketing strategy in the twenty-first century: Nokia versus Microsoft versus Linux. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing.22(5), pp. 295–301 Kirby, S. (2000). Free to choose: the real power of Linux. 18(1), pp. 85-88 Lathrop, J. (2002). Linux in small business: A practical users guide. Berkeley, CA: Apress. Mookhey, K. K., Burghate, N., & Information Systems Audit and Control Association. (2005). Linux: Security, audit and control features. Rolling Meadows, Ill: Information Systems Audit and Control Association. Read More