Fragmentation

More distros = more choice

As makers of proprietary software enter the enterprise Linux fray with their own distributions, they are contributing to the fragmentation of Linux, reports Kushal Shah

Ever since Richard Stallman started his GNU project in late 1983, it’s been a free world out there for consumers but not really for enterprise Linux users owing to the services and support fees that they need to shell out. Over the years, there has been a Linux overdose of choice for consumers and that trend is now picking up on the enterprise front as well with some of the major proprietary software players jumping on the Linux bandwagon. For consumers, Linux being free, this was not a big deal and most did not bother about the fragmentation issue. However, when it comes to a paid version for the enterprise segment, CIOs will be worried about the growing number of distros. Even the hardware vendors and third party support providers are a bit skeptical about the growing variants of enterprise Linux.

The enterprise Linux market, which was predominantly dominated by two players, Novell and Red Hat, is starting to look a bit crowded with Oracle releasing its own distribution. Even the consumer favorite, Ubuntu, is trying to make a splash in the enterprise segment with its latest offerings. Oracle has decided to enter the market by distributing a Red Hat clone under GNU licensing and by proving support at a lower cost. Microsoft has partnered with Novell to provide interoperability support and has decided to distribute SUSE. Broaden the scope to include any open OS and Sun’s Solaris 10 has made its way as a stable Unix based distribution system that’s available as OpenSolaris.

More choice

With more than 300 active distributions (distros), Linux is on a roll. Linux distros primarily differ in terms of features since they are built on variants of the same kernel (32-bit/64-bit; with various features of the kernel enabled or disabled). “All the Linux distributions come from the same upstream kernel and what distinguishes each distribution is how they provide support, get ISVs to certify the ISV applications on the specific distribution, and how IHVs (Independent Hardware Vendor) get to do the same,” feels Nandu Pradhan, President & Managing Director, Red Hat India. Red Hat, arguably the market leader in India, currently provides both desktop and server versions of its latest product Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL). This server version comes in different variants for mainframe, advanced platforms and HPC. Red Hat, working with the US National Security Agency, has come up with Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux)—a standard offering in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. For those, who wanted to go all out with the idea of virtualization, Red Hat’s virtualization capability is integrated in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system.

In Novell’s case, SUSE sports additional security features with AppArmor. “Linux with its shell architecture is well secured but what about the application level security? We have included AppArmor, which monitors applications running on top of Linux and does not allow any illegal action,” said Sandeep Menon, Country Head, Novell India. He felt that the biggest difference between various distributions is how enterprise-ready they are. SUSE in its different flavors comes in desktop as well as server variants known as SLED and SLES respectively. For servers, there are specific versions for specific requirements. For example, for real-time applications for the financial industry, they have a real-time server, which has nanosecond IO performance and the special version for thin clients is also available which is a stripped down Linux. One of the biggest features, which Novell is capitalizing on these days, is that of interoperability with Microsoft.

Both Red Hat and Novell have their line of versions with some more added features to lure the enterprises, but in this race, some of the new players have also come in with their own set of features. Ubuntu for example has a server edition. Then there’s CentOS—a community compiled enterprise Linux distro built from Red Hat sources.

Oracle on one side is distributing its own version of Linux, which is a Red Hat clone and is providing support at a much lower rate to shake the market. On the other hand, Sun Microsystems has its open source variant of its UNIX flagship, Solaris 10. In terms of features, Naveen Asrani, Manager, Developer Relations - India, Asia South & AustralAsia, Sun Microsystems explained, “Features like DTrace and Predictive self-healing, which are unique to Solaris 10, minimize the level of human intervention and supervision that is required. Hence these features free up system administrators’ time and help them concentrate on other things.”

Looking at this trend of companies trying to grab a pie of the enterprise segment, we can well expect some more companies, be it proprietary or on the Linux front, jumping in with their line of enterprise offerings which will eventually lead to greater fragmentation of the market for open source OSs.

Mixed emotions

The industry has mixed feelings about the issue of Linux fragmentation and open source as a whole. Some believe it is good for the industry, which the majority feels, but some are also of the opinion that this fragmentation will hurt the OS.

Some of the free standard group members are on a mission to stop the fragmentation of Linux as they believe that if not stopped, Linux will lose ground. The growing popularity of distributions such as Ubuntu in the enterprise space is confusing the enterprise user as they all are providing more or less the same features and as far as services are concerned, since it’s a free economy for open source, anyone can provide the same. And possibly, in the longer run, we can see enterprises drifting away from open source in order to save time on selection after all they are not personal users who are probably just enthusiasts and can devote time in testing various versions and then short listing one.

Linux distributors also have mixed opinions on this topic. Menon said, “Linux as an operating system has leaned from Unix which was a great OS but at some point of time due to the proprietary modification it forked. In case of Linux, we ensure that kernel is same and we cannot do proprietary modification. Whatever is modified at the kernel is given back to community under license and thus, forking doesn’t happen.”

Explaining the detail of forking, according to Pradhan, GPL licensing of Linux gives the right to anyone to fork the kernel. The fact that it has not been forked, is a testimony to the inherent strength of the open source development model. When an organization forks the kernel in response to customer requirements, that organization is then burdened to carry the forked code for the entire duration of the support of the customer. If that particular code patch is accepted by the upstream developers, then the support burden is shared globally, but if it is not, the burden is significant and warrants an examination of its value.

According to some Linux vendors, fragmentation is a good thing because it brings vibrancy and wider choices in the market. Linux is all about community and vibrancy. The moment number of players reduces, vibrancy reduces and if you have more players, vibrancy remains. According to Menon, the whole philosophy of open source is different since none of the distributors creates the whole kernel but anybody can have their own version, which helps create vibrancy, and GPL ensures that vendors are just putting a new wrapping over the kernel. On the other hand, some believe it is not all that healthy. “Fragmentation is not a good end result. We, along with the open source community have consistently sought to ensure that this does not happen. With more Linux distributors there is more competition in the market and every distributor keeps on adding more value for their customers,” believed Pradhan.

India still away from vibrancy

Talking about the flavors and a fragmented market, India as of now is not yet affected by it from the enterprise point of view and can probably accommodate a couple of more players. With this, though it is cumbersome for customers to choose what they want but they can still select their option and prevents a vendor lock-in situation.

Again the choice, which an enterprise customer has to make, can lead to problems if not done rightly. “This level of choice can be somewhat bewildering. The corporate buyer needs to understand the context and needs to know that not all the versions are meant for them. As long as buyers know this face, it is a far less confusing landscape than it might appear,” feels Gerry Carr, Marketing Manager, Canonical -The commercial sponsor of Ubuntu.

Spreading and supporting Linux

Linux thrives on the free market economy where anyone can choose anything they want and can even choose the third-party support. All the major Linux vendors and other support players have support as the bulwark of their revenue model and provide a variety of support to consumers as per their needs. In case of support, some of the large companies are adopting a higher lever support model in which, small companies provide L1 and L2 support or till the level small companies can manage and they in turn take L3 support from large players such as Novell. When the market is fragmented, all these options can be worked out with ease. Talking on the support issue, Pradhan said, “We thrive on not locking in customers with proprietary systems. Our customers are free to move to any other vendor if they feel that we are not providing value. For support, in India, we have invested in a global support center, which is based out of Pune.”

Along with support, the spread of Linux is essential and with growing fragmentation and variants, third-party support training for specific versions is a must with the growing number of enterprises using Linux. “Sun is actively involved in developing the ecosystem for open source. As part of this we are also training our partners and third parties to provide the right kind of support and services to customers using open source products,” said Asrani.

Fragmentation certainly puts challenge on the third-party providers and if they have a tool to deal with changes happening, things can be made much more convenient. “Fragmentation presents a challenge for core or third-party support organizations for sure, but it is not insurmountable. Ubuntu provides a tool for corporate users called Landscape, which invites users to register their machines on Web-based management tools. This allows our support engineers to look at a machine and assess how it is configured, which packages it is running on and therefore speedily return fixes,” said Carr. These sorts of tools, in reality should be made available for third-party providers but this will even fragment the market further.

Finally, we can say that full fragmentation has not arrived but is not far. Though it is not all that bad for the market if things work well under GPL licensing, the industry needs to take care that things do not go out of hand. The spread of Linux has certainly put the proprietary players on the back foot, but in any case, if Linux is well supported by core or third-party players, it is a win -win situation for the customers wanting to move to Linux.

kushal.shah@expressindia.com