Linux Server Environment - Case Study Example

Linux Server Environment Linux Server Environment A Linux server is an open source operating system that is used for system and network administration, database management and web services. Linux is designed to handle huge traffics and its high level of security, stability and flexibility has made it the most widely used server operating system. The leading Linux server operating systems are Debian, Ubuntu Server, SUSE, Red Hat and Slackware (Hagen & Jones, 2005). The Linux kernel was first released in 1991 by Linus Torvalds. The kernel is the main program of the operating system that manages resources. Linux is a POSIX compliant Unix-like operating system that is under the GNU General Public License. Development of Linux started when Richard Stallman, the founder of the GNU Project, wanted to create a UNIX compatible software composed entirely of free software. By the early 1990s most of the libraries and programs required to form the Operating system were complete but low-level components like daemons, device drivers and the kernel were stalled. In 1991, frustrated by the licensing of MINIX, Linus Torvalds a student at the University of Helsinki began to work on a kernel that eventually became the Linux Kernel. From inception, Linux was an open source project and over the years it has grown to become one of the most successful open source software collaborations (Thomas, 2005). Setting up a Linux powered server usually involves setting up LAMP. LAMP is an abbreviation of Linux, Apache, MYSQL and three CGI scripting languages PHP, Perl or Python. It is the most widely used solution stack. Linux is used to provide an execution environment, Apache is the web server that serves web pages in response to user requests, and MYSQL provides persistent storage for web apps while one of the three scripting languages ensures that the pages served by the Apache web server are dynamic (Mookhey & Burghate, 2005). Apache, formally referred to as Apache HTTP Server, is a web server application developed and maintained by an open community of developers with the help, support and protection from the apache Software foundation. Apache played a key role in the initial growth of the web. Initially developed in 1995 as a replacement for NCSA HTTPd, Apache grew in popularity to become the first web server running more that 100 million websites. Its popularity continues to grow and currently, it is estimated to serve more than 53.3% of all active websites (Eckert & Novell, 2006). MSQL is a relational database management system commonly used to store data for web applications. Development of MYSQL first started as a proprietary project under the auspices of MySLQ AB, a Swedish company which was later acquired by Oracle. The Name MYSQL is a concatenation of the phrase Structured Query Language (SQL) and My, the daughter of MySQL AB co-founder Michael Widenius. Currently MYSQL is the second most widely used opens source RDBMS used in applications like Joomla, WordPress, Wikipedia, Google, Facebook and Twitter. In the Lamp Stack MYSQL can be replaced by MariaDB or MongoDB (Bradford & Mauget, 2002). To provide Dynamic content in web pages, scripts need to be embedded in the pages. A script enabled server first runs the pages through a script interpreter to translate the scripts into content the browser can understand then send the dynamically generated page to the client. Scripts achieve their role by saving user generated data to a database then retrieving the data and serving it to the user when required. Internet growth is attributed to web apps being able to serve real time content and scripting languages like PhP, Perl and Python have pioneered this dynamism (Sobh, 2008). PhP, acronym for the recursive acronym Hypertext Preprocessor, is an open source server side scripting language created by Rasmus Lerdof in 1995. Currently, the reference implementation is produced by the PHP Group. PhP grew in popularity and it is now supported in major operating systems and installed in more than 240 million websites. Obtaining the LAMP stack is easy as all of its components are freely available. Apache MySQL and PHP are commonly used in a Unix-like Operating system like Linux which means that after you deploy your Linux server, you will experience few incompatibility and runtime issues (Eckert & Novell, 2006). Linux was first designed to be used on 86x-based personal computers but due to its growth in popularity, it was ported to other hardware platforms. With so many variants of Linux, the hardware requirements to set up a Linux server are minimal. If your server will only handle minimal traffic, a server with 300 MHZ x86 processor, 192 MB of RAM and 1GB disk space will suffice. For enterprise use, the hardware needs to be powerful enough to handle huge traffic. Enterprises usually employ distributed systems to run their web apps. In such systems, several dedicated machines can run the RDBMS while another one can run the HTTP web server. This ensures that if one system experiences a failure, the application will still be available to clients. Windows is a proprietary operating system that can be used as a replacement for Linux as a server environment. Windows is owned and developed by Microsoft Corporation. With Microsoft Server, you are guaranteed of official support from their team of experts when you experience a problem. With this server, you have the option of either installing their companion soft wares like Ms SQL or install the freely available open source alternatives like MYSQL. There are several advantages of the Linux server environment. The various advantages of this type of enevironmentar as highlighted below One advantage of Linux server environment is commercial support. This was a major headache at the past and it prevented several businesses from using Linux server environment hence most businesses continued running on other environments. This was however resolved by the big three commercial Linux providers (Novell, Red Hat and Canonical). Each of these big three companies offer a 24x7x365 for business services and the mission critical applications. Since many businesses have standardized on Microsoft technology especially the .NET technology, Linux has the capability to support the same hence Linux server environment is reliable for such businesses. Novell for instance supports and owns a project called Mono which is responsible for maintenance of the .NET compatibility (Bradford & Mauget, 2002). The stability of Linux gives owners of businesses peace of mind given that they won’t have to suffer from outages due to instabilities of the operating system. This is legitimate since Linux enjoys high uptimes measured in years just like UNIX. The security that comes with Linux server environment is also advantageous. The security is brought about by the regular kernel updates and daily release of new security patches by the Linux code maintainers. Linux does not require a regular upgrade of the hardware parts of a computer system that is usually associated with every release of a new software version. Linux runs efficiently on both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures (Mookhey & Burghate, 2005). Linux’s biggest advanatage is that it is is free. In this case, free means that it is free to acquire and even free of patents and other restrictions. These restrictions may limit business owners who may wish to enhance the source code by editing it. Despite the above advantages of Linux server environment, there are some disadvantages associated with the same. The following are the disadvantages of using Linux. The Linux environment does not have a standard edition. Unlike in Microsoft where there are several different editions of each standard windows variation, it is very hard for a new Linux user to decide on which Linux distro works best for them because there are countless variations of Linux. Linux also has a patchier support for drivers. Drivers are software that coordinate the operation of the operating system and the hardware. This means that sometimes it can be tricky when trying to set up new hardware devices (Hagen & Jones, 2005). Another setback for a Linux environment is that for new users, Linux is not as easy to use as Windows. Largely, this is because Linux gives the user more control hence new users have to spend some time learning how the system works. Given that Linux is non-commercial and not as popular as Windows, getting support may be relatively challenging and although Linux enthusiasts can offer to help, their level of technical understanding may be quite higher. Linux server environment can be relatively unfriendly to gamers because most new games are commercial hence not possible to reproduce in a Linux environment. Introduction of Linux environment in a corporate world is also not easy since most workers are acquainted with the Windows environment and Microsoft programs (Bradford & Mauget, 2002). References Bradford, E. & Mauget, L., 2002. Linux and Windows Interoperability Guide. 2nd ed. s.l.:Prentice Hall Professional. Eckert, J. W. & Novell, 2006. Advanced SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Administration. 2nd ed. s.l.:Course Technology. Hagen, W. v. & Jones, B. K., 2005. Linux Server Hacks, Volume Two: Tips & Tools for Connecting, Monitoring, and Troubleshooting. 2nd ed. New York: "OReilly Media, Inc.",. Mookhey, K. K. & Burghate, N., 2005. Linux-- Security, Audit and Control Features. 1st ed. Illinois: ISACA. Sobh, T. M., 2008. Novel Algorithms and Techniques in Telecommunications, Automation and Industrial Electronics. 1st ed. s.l.:Springer. Thomas, K., 2005. Beginning SUSE Linux: From Novice to Professional. 1st ed. New York: Apress. Read More