EWA

EWA-Linux bundles for SMBs

Customers are forcing the server OEMs to provide a certification that business applications and hardware will play nice with the Linux OS. Bundles at aggressive price points are additional drivers, writes Vinita Gupta

The growth of open source in the past had been slow due to lack of support, immaturity of products and lack of application support on Linux. Of late, however, significant growth in enterprise-wide application deployment on Linux has been seen, be it ERP, SCM or CRM. SMBs can lower TCO of business applications with Linux.

Server vendors have recognized this market opportunity and have bundled their servers with enterprise business application suites. They are certifying that their servers can run enterprise applications smoothly on a Linux platform and this has helped the market to expand further. Additionally, Linux provides a lower total cost of acquisition (TCA) and total cost of ownership (TCO) in terms of savings on license fees, maintenance and the cost of forced upgradation.

A growing support base

The biggest obstacle for the growth of Linux was the lack of trained manpower to effectively deploy and utilize the platform. Additionally there was no proper support/certification for the hardware that Linux runs upon. However with time this problem has largely been alleviated. The other factor hampering the growth of Linux has been the availability of device drivers and Linux compatible software from various device manufacturers. This problem remains even today although a large number of vendors now offer Linux software and driver support.

Nandu Pradhan, President and Managing Director, Red Hat India said, “There are thousands of applications available on Linux. This availability of applications is a key factor in the growth and adoption of Linux, especially in the enterprise segment. Red Hat has recognized this market need and has invested in bundling the widest range of certified applications on the RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) platform, which gives customers greater choice today.” Additionally Red Hat is trying to accelerate application migration and availability by continuously investing around open source development tools and technologies such as JBoss, MetaMatrix and Mobicents.

According to Seema Ambastha, Director–Technology Sales Consulting, Oracle India, “Linux as an OS is gaining momentum steadily and several reasons can be attributed to this growth pattern—the availability of applications, platform of choice or preference of ISVs, stability and support, availability of skills and resource pools and the maturity of the platform to suit an enterprise-wide deployment. We have seen a remarkable change in the system integrator and the ISV approach towards Linux during the past 12 months and it has been very positive. Linux will continue to see more adoption and growth in every industry in the years ahead.”

Yatin Kantak, Regional Director, India/Middle East/South East Asia, Nitix, (Net Integration Technologies) felt that stronger applications and more readily available support for Linux-based applications will definitely boost the growth of Linux. Nitix had developed principles of autonomic computing, which is self-managing, self-configuring, self-optimizing and self-protecting. This means that customers do not require Linux skill sets to deploy or manage Nitix, or any third-party business applications being offered by the company.

EWA on Linux

Over last five to six years, Linux has already proved itself on the basic parameters such as reliability, security, lower TCO. This has given confidence to the customers in accepting Linux on the server side for deploying their core applications. Hence, more and more business applications are being developed as Web-based applications and ported on to Linux, without any dependence on the OS available on the client side.

Jyothi Satyanathan, Vice-president, pSeries, IBM India/South Asia said, “After all the success seen by large enterprises, SMB customers are now in the process of IT automation. Increasing competition, growing customer demands are key factors that have forced the SMB customers to reduce their production costs.” ERP, SCM or CRM are the core applications, which any organization would like to implement first. These applications help SMBs to streamline their processes and remain competitive in their offerings to their customers.

Large enterprise solution vendors such as Oracle, IBM, SAP, etc., are extending support for their applications on Linux. There is increased adoption as these applications gain maturity on Linux. Organizations such as Oracle also offer enterprise Linux support. Customers can get technical assistance for both products and Linux from Oracle, which makes it seamless and easy to adopt Linux for enterprise applications. Linux drastically reduces the cost of a solution while offering Unix-like reliability.

Pradhan revealed, “Linux

helps SMBs reduce their capital expenditure (capex) and is therefore is a natural choice. SMBs can try out Linux without incurring capex and pay for value-added services such as support, training etc. Linux is leading the shift away from proprietary software licenses to software-as-a-service (SaaS) and this is friendly towards SMB cash flows.”

According to Sandeep Menon, Country Head, Novell India, there is no hardcore bundling of applications on Linux and applications were earlier only available on Windows but now they are available on Linux too. Today even middleware standardizes the application. He added, “Some vendors offer schemes wherein the customers can get hardware, OS and enterprise applications. But the SMB customer looks for the best technology from the best solution provider and usually ignores such schemes.”

Linux brings high-end capabilities to customers at a fraction of the price of competing proprietary solutions making high-end applications more affordable to SMBs. Also, companies such as Dell test Linux with the same rigor that the tightly coupled architectures of Unix feature. This ensures not only powerful systems, but also stable hardware deployments, so that the customers can focus on their business.

Advantages of bundling

We have seen that the enterprises and SMBs are deploying EWA applications on Linux. Let’s take a close look as to how the bundling of applications is benefiting the server vendors and users.

Satyanathan from IBM believed that bundling is usually helpful as it provides customers with a ready-made, out-of-the-box and guaranteed-to-work solution. The issues of hardware and software compatibility are fully resolved by the vendors and that reduces the time required for deploying a solution. Bundling also gives vendors the advantage of offering readymade and cost-effective solutions that can be sold in large numbers thereby increasing their server revenue footprint.

Customers are buying applications and solutions to meet their needs. Bundles with the entire hardware and software stack tested and certified make the roll-out and implementation that much easier. Bundled solutions are also designed to lower overall implementation time and avoid costly hardware upgrades.

Harmeet Malhotra, WW PG Storage Marketing, Dell India said that bundling enterprise applications with servers provides lower priced software licenses as server OEMs can negotiate better prices due to higher volumes. He said, “The biggest saving that the customers get is not from bundling but from the fact that the OS and applications are pre-installed by the hardware vendor’s factory. Server sizing depending upon the number of licenses required by the customer is something that server vendors do by themselves at their lab and the performance levels of the servers are thoroughly tested before presenting them to end customers. This not only saves the time that would otherwise be spent upon on-site configuration but the fact that it is a tested, stable installation assures customers of trouble-free operations for a longer time period.” Poorly installed software may often lead to recurrent problems through the life of the systems and this may be averted with pre-installation at the factory.

Dell is not only installing operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and multiple versions of Linux but is also deploying customer-specific applications. It is shipping ready-to-use systems that assure stable deployment. Currently available for notebook PCs, desktops and servers, Dell is working to expand the options available to customers by tying up with Sun Microsystems to bring similar benefits to x86 with Solaris. Thus bundled and pre-installed software (operating system and application software) is providing long-term investment protection.

Bundling has also been able to reduce TCO and TCA. TCA is reduced because the vendors are able to negotiate lower licensing costs based on the combined purchasing power of the worldwide customer base. TCO is reduced because of the autonomic nature of the integration of the applications that a vendor offers.

Nitix has been able to make enterprise business applications deployable with a few clicks even for customers with no Linux expertise. Applications built on IBM’s Lotus Domino platform can be integrated into the IBM’s Notes client, making it easy for users to access new applications as their companies roll them out.

Types of bundled applications

Depending on the industry type, there are various applications that are made available and bundled. Then there are low-end point solutions, which cater to specific requirements. Vendors generally bundle these point solutions with their servers and offer a bundle pack to customers. This is primarily accepted in the SMB segment. Data management and integration, portal and collaboration solutions are some of the applications which have a huge demand currently.

According to Red Hat, office productivity tools, e-mail, identity, file, Web, database and middleware applications are being bundled. At IBM, back-end applications where the client interface is not required are generally bundled with a Linux server. Kantak said, “We are working closely with IBM to integrated Nitix with IBM Lotus Domino platform. The integration with Nitix will help customers deploy feature-rich, business applications, such as Relavis eSales customer relationship management software and ExtraFax (a digital faxing solution).”

Unlike other Linux providers, Novell is not an application provider but it has other independent businesses, which takes care of security and compliance, system management, communication with Microsoft Exchange, etc. According to the customers’ requirement Novell can tap these applications with Linux. Novell has a partnership with SAP, and has a single support line so that customers find support under one roof.

It’s true that the server vendors and application providers are talking a lot about the advantages of application availability on Linux, but still large scale adoption of bundled Linux at the customers end is not happening and there lies the market opportunity.

vinita.gupta@expressindia.com