Linux Enterprise Study - Essay Example

Linux was first developed by Linus Torvalds in 1991. Linux is a UNIX-like operating system that is available in the form of open source with commitments from a number of application developers and the two large technology giants - RED HAT (http://www.redhat.com/) and NOVELL (http://www.novell.com/linux/). IBM has partnered with both Red Hat and Novell to develop the widest range of solution in the world. They have more than 600 developers dedicated to developing solutions on Linux platform (http://www-03.ibm.com/linux/).

This paper presents a detailed understanding of Linux Enterprise System, its capabilities in a Networked environment and its application in the global IT market. The paper will cover the architecture, process of deployment, Innovations by Red Hat, popular applications, embedded applications and global acceptance of Linux Enterprise. Linux is one of the most popular systems in the world of open-source software systems. The global commitment to this open source operating system is extremely high.

The concept of Open Source is that the basic kernel and other infrastructure components are available free that can then be used by organizations to apply customizations and build solutions to be sold in the market at a price. Hence Linux from Red Hat and Novel SUSE comes at a cost. The Linux is available freely at www.linux.org. Many high end software applications and RDBMS systems are developed on Linux that are running business critical IT systems for Customers. A list of applications supported on Linux is available at http://www.linux.org/apps/.

A number of other open source platforms are developed on Linux platform which are today very popular in the commercial world. The most prominent among them are PHP (for application end coding), MySQL (RDBMS) and Apache (Web Server) (http://www.php.net/, http://www.mysql.com/, http://www.apache.org/). These open source platforms are again widely used in the global market just like Linux. These platforms are used by a number of companies to package and sell software applications for businesses.

In addition, a number of hardware companies have developed hardware based solutions with embedded Linux. Some of the examples of widely used devices with embedded Linux are Barracuda Ani-Spam solutions and Sonicwall Firewall. The site http://www.linuxdevices.com presents a wide range of devices that use embedded linux as the core operating system.Linux Enterprise System ArchitectureLinux is a 32 bit & 64 bit operating system that is available on a wide range of hardware platforms - Intel, SUN Sparc, Power-PC, and Digital Alpha.

The Linux on Digital Alpha is available in 32 bit as well as 64 bit variants. Linux has a kernel system that is similar to that of Unix. It has multi-tasking, multi-user and multi-processing support just like any other Server based Operating