Linux marches into Unix territory

Sng Chee Khiang / Singapore

For the last 20 years, Unix has been the platform of choice for mission-critical applications. The OS has proven itself in telecommunications, banking, databases, and data warehousing, among others.

But the recent emergence of Linux has prompted some press and industry analysts to predict the decline of Unix. According to IDC, Linux had a 16 percent market share in server OS shipments in 2003 and the number will rise to 27 percent in 2007.

What is the appeal of Linux and what then of Unix?

Unix is a server operating system invented by Kenneth Thompson and Dennis Ritchie of Bell Labs in 1969. The turning point in Unix’s history came when it was re-implemented almost entirely in the C programming language during 1972–1974, making it the first source-portable OS.

Originally free, its code was subsequently licensed by many vendors (e.g. IBM AIX, HP-UX, SUN Solaris) that extended it and added some proprietary features.

On the other hand, Linux is an open source clone of Unix. It was originally designed for use on Intel chips but is now available on a range of chipsets.

Linux consists of a kernel (core operating system) that was originally written by Linus Torvalds, and comes with utility programs developed by the Free Software Foundation and others.

There are a few distributions of Linux, but 90% of Linux deployments are based on Red Hat’s distribution. The others are by Mandrake, SuSE Linux, and Gentoo, to name a few.

Cheaper and easier

Despite Unix’s proven robustness, stability and security, it has always come with a disadvantage—cost. This is because each server vendor uses a different version of Unix that is tailor-made for its hardware platform, and some of this hardware can be quite expensive—think big, proprietary mainframes and such.

On the other hand, Linux users typically deploy Linux on industry-standard Intel-type platforms, said Philip Sargeant, research director, Servers and Storage, Gartner Asia Pacific. “It is also relatively easy to port applications from a Unix platform to a Linux platform. And since Linux is very similar to Unix, and for those organisations that already have Unix skills, it will not take a lot for them to understand and administer Linux,” added Sargeant.

According to HP, Unix is the most common OS of choice in industries that require high availability and a robust system to support their data-intensive applications, while Linux traditionally has been used in technical computing and at the edge-of-network applications such as firewalls, mail servers and Web hosting.

Ross Templeton, Operating Environment Marketing, Business Critical System, Customer Solutions Group, HP Asia Pacific, said that from HP’s experience, Linux is gradually moving towards enterprise applications. But while Linux has proven to be a secure and stable OS, “HP does not believe that Linux is being seriously considered for mission-critical applications by many customers today,” said Templeton.

Gartner’s Sargeant agreed. “Mission criticality is still associated with enterprise-type applications, databases, ATM networks and banking systems. “Although Linux is making inroads into these areas, it is still dominated by the mainframe and Unix-type systems. There needs to be more proof points that Linux is capable of providing the uptime, performance and reliability in these areas of computing,” Sargeant said.

Linux wins over enterprises

Those proof points are slowly, but surely coming. Red Hat, a Linux provider, pointed out its recent customer wins of Morgan Stanley, Amazon.com, Google, and UBS Warburg as proofs that the enterprise market is viewing Linux favourably for running mission-critical applications. In particular, the recent announcement by the New South Wales Office of State Revenue (OSR) in Australia to adopt Oracle Database and Real Application Clusters running on Red Hat Enterprise Advanced Server, was a significant milestone for Linux. The solution will support OSR’s core taxation system, which transacts over $9.13 billion annually and pays $211–351 million annually in claims, grants and subsidies. This includes transactions for land tax, payroll tax and stamp duties completed over the Internet or at OSR branches.

The China State Post Bureau, a government agency responsible for delivering postal services to the entire country, also trusts Linux for mission-critical work.

As a result of the nationwide deployment of Linux on IBM’s xSeries servers, the bureau has transformed its traditional postal system into a standardised and integrated electronic platform. This is a humongous system of 14,446 postal vehicles, 10 planes and 15 ships, that runs close to 80,000 post offices and service stations throughout China.

As Lawrence Ng, country manager, eServer pSeries, IBM Systems and Technology Group, Singapore, put it: “Linux has matured significantly with time, and it can no longer be said that a client is getting an inferior solution if they install Linux instead of Unix. He added that Linux no longer faces difficulties with hardware reliability, availability and serviceability, as it is now available in the 64-bit space on traditionally robust, mainframe-class server hardware. Besides, “as most leading middleware applications and products are available on Linux, and often at lower prices than what is usually expected in the mission-critical space, the barriers to entry due to application availability are also falling,” he said.

Still room for Unix

Despite predictions of its demise, Unix continues to be used by many large organisations, as evident from its market share in terms of revenue. It commanded 46 percent of the market in the Asia-Pacific in 2003, according to Gartner. Windows was next with around 38 percent, while Linux only had 3 percent of the market. Gartner’s Sargeant believes Unix servers will continue to get bigger, more powerful, and have greater functionality, while Linux will continue to grow and mature with more applications being written for it. “Linux will impact, but will not suddenly replace the other platforms,” said Sargeant. “It will chip away at Unix and Windows and users will have to decide what is the best operating system for their applications.”

IBM advises that Unix should be at the top of the list for companies that require the latest in features and functions, based on hardware for capabilities such as virtualisation and high performance. Linux, meanwhile, should be strongly considered for companies which generally use industry-standard solutions and want to provide for vendor and hardware independence, and which are looking to consolidate all of their solutions onto a single operating system. “Linux is increasingly becoming a solution that can allow companies to leverage on the best capabilities of different hardware platforms with a single, unifying operating system.” Unix be warned. The penguin is slowly, but surely, waddling into an enterprise server near you.

This article first appeared in Asia Computer Weekly